The Purpose of Lent
Since most Christian denominations in America have nixed the ancient spiritual exercise, there has always been so much confusion surrounding the holy season of Lent. However, we Catholics haven't exactly been good at understanding, explaining, or practicing it correctly ourselves! Is it all about helping the fishing industry? ...or is it all about stock piling chocolate and making ourselves sick on Easter Sunday? Not quite.
It would take a book (not that I'm opposed to writing "books") to explain its beauty, depth, history, and riches. So let's just start with some simple words from the Holy Father.
If you've never read any writings of the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) and treasured the experience of letting his words penetrate directly to your soul... start. The wisdom of this man is endless. He might not be as charismatic as his rock-star predecessor, but it has been said that while John Paul brought millions to the table, they are now ready to listen to Benedict.
The Holy Father on the Purpose of Lent:
The purpose of Lent is to keep alive in our consciousness and our life the fact that being a Christian can only take the form of becoming a Christian ever anew; that it is not an event now over and done with but a process requiring constant practice.
Let us ask, then: What does it mean to become a Christian? How does this take place?...If individuals are to become Christians they need the strength to overcome; they need the power to stand fast against the natural tendency to let themselves be carried along. Life in the most inclusive sense has been defined as "resistance to the pull of gravity." Only where such effort is expended is there life; where the effort ceases life too ceases. If this is true in the biological sphere, it is all the more true in the spiritual.
The human person is the being which does not become itself automatically. Nor does it do so simply by letting itself be carried along and surrendering to the natural gravitational pull of a kind of vegetative life. It becomes itself always and only by struggling against the tendency simply to vegetate and by dint of a discipline that is able to rise above the pressures of routine and to liberate the self from the compulsions of utilitarian goals and instincts. Our world is so full of what immediately impinges on our senses that we are in danger of seeing only details and losing sight of the whole. It takes effort to see beyond what is right in front of us and to free ourselves from the tyranny of what directly presses upon us.
It would take a book (not that I'm opposed to writing "books") to explain its beauty, depth, history, and riches. So let's just start with some simple words from the Holy Father.
If you've never read any writings of the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) and treasured the experience of letting his words penetrate directly to your soul... start. The wisdom of this man is endless. He might not be as charismatic as his rock-star predecessor, but it has been said that while John Paul brought millions to the table, they are now ready to listen to Benedict.
The Holy Father on the Purpose of Lent:
The purpose of Lent is to keep alive in our consciousness and our life the fact that being a Christian can only take the form of becoming a Christian ever anew; that it is not an event now over and done with but a process requiring constant practice.
Let us ask, then: What does it mean to become a Christian? How does this take place?...If individuals are to become Christians they need the strength to overcome; they need the power to stand fast against the natural tendency to let themselves be carried along. Life in the most inclusive sense has been defined as "resistance to the pull of gravity." Only where such effort is expended is there life; where the effort ceases life too ceases. If this is true in the biological sphere, it is all the more true in the spiritual.
The human person is the being which does not become itself automatically. Nor does it do so simply by letting itself be carried along and surrendering to the natural gravitational pull of a kind of vegetative life. It becomes itself always and only by struggling against the tendency simply to vegetate and by dint of a discipline that is able to rise above the pressures of routine and to liberate the self from the compulsions of utilitarian goals and instincts. Our world is so full of what immediately impinges on our senses that we are in danger of seeing only details and losing sight of the whole. It takes effort to see beyond what is right in front of us and to free ourselves from the tyranny of what directly presses upon us.
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