The Tribune

By Rev Canon S Sebastian Campbell

There has been an over-abundance of arrogance expressed concerning this holy season of Lent, which the greater part of Christianity finds spiritually and physically fulfilling.

This arrogance has its roots in ignorance.

We hear unenlightened religious leaders on television and radio scoffing at one of the most sacred and solemn occasions for the overwhelming majority of the Christian world.

This article seeks to shatter the gloomy night of ignorance in this matter.
Our word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencten,” meaning “the time of the lengthening days” or simply “spring”. Lent as we know it now extends for 40 days, which is parallel to the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness.

Sundays in Lent are not counted into the 40 days, seeing that Sundays are never days of fasting for the Christian.
The season begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday, the Saturday before Easter. The last week before Easter is called Holy Week and is set apart for special emphasis. The season actually grew by extension backward from Easter.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, followed by Mardi Gras, or “Fat-Tuesday” or Shrove Tuesday. Ash Wednesday sets an appropriately penitential or preparatory tone for Lent.

The name Ash Wednesday derives from the traditional rite of that day in which the celebrant makes the sign of the cross on the foreheads of worshippers using ashes made from palms leaves leftover from the previous Palm Sunday celebration.

The use of ashes is evident among the people of God in both Old and New Testaments. It is a symbolic reminder of the on-going need of repentance and humility before God. What is ever so powerful are the words used by the priest when imposing the ashes of our mortality, “Remember man you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

The new rite now adds the challenging words, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” Such is the imagery we take with us into this solemn season.
The beginning of Lent is first mentioned in Christian writings about 100 AD.

It started as a brief period of strict fasting and prayer, observed by all, in preparation for the Paschal Feast, Easter. The custom may have been taken over from Judaism, since it was once customary for Jews to fast in preparation for Passover. Somewhere around 313 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine became a convert to Christianity, declared it a legal religion, and made Sunday the official day of worship and a holiday.

In doing this, however, he created some problems as well. Converts to the newly popular faith increased quickly, now that it was safe and acceptable, but many only partly understood it.

And now that secrecy was no longer necessary, devotion tended to relax among the faithful.

Now the necessity for extensive teaching and increased discipline influenced the development of a period of preparation, which was to include both the candidates for baptism and those already initiated.

Lent in the Western Church (our part of the world) became a six-week span, excluding Sundays, and in the Eastern Church became, and remains, a seven-week season, excluding Saturdays as well as Sundays. In 325 AD at the council of Nicaea, the church word for Lent – Quadragesima, meaning a 40-day period – first appeared and was understood as a season of six weeks, beginning on what is now the first Sunday in Lent.

Lent is properly observed by undertaking special programmes of study, teaching and renewal. It is an appropriate time to instil discipline in one’s life; St Paul talks about beating the body in subjection to the spirit and make it know its master. Lent is a time to take personal inventory in our relationship with God and one another. Of course Lent must not be the only time we do these things, but it is built into our church system so as to better reinforce the possibility that we do them.

The purpose of Lent is not self-punishment, but preparation for Easter through concentration on fundamental values and priorities.