On the Meaning of Lent

There is only one saint normally commemorated during this week:

March 9th – St. Frances of Rome


whose commemoration  is actually suppressed this year because it falls on the First Sunday of Lent.


It is almost certainly not an accident that there are far fewer saints remembered by the Church during Lent, as this season is the most intensely reflective season of the Catholic Liturgical Year.  It is a time to focus on strengthening our relationship with God through Jesus in preparation for the celebration of Holy Week / Easter


That said, one needs to add that though this week may seem like a “Saint Desert” in the Liturgical Calendar, the paucity of Saints is not a consistent characteristic of the Season of Lent as we will be celebrating soon enough three very important feast days – St. Patrick (on March 17th), St. Joseph (on March 19th) and the Annunciation (to Mary) of the Lord (on March 25th).  


Still, we’re given a time to reflect on purpose of the Season of Lent.


And since there are almost an infinite directions in which one could go at this point, I’m going to spend my time here focusing simply on the Season’s name, as I do feel that it is instructive in understanding then its fundamental orientation and purpose.


The official Ecclessial name for Lent (in Latin) is actually Quadragesima which translates to “The Forty Days” or “The Forty Day period,” recalling Jesus’ forty day retreat into the desert following his baptism and before the beginning of his ministry (Mk 1:12–13; Mt 4:1–11; Lk 4:1–13)


By tradition, Jesus fasted and prayed for those forty days, hence the penitential character of this Season of Forty Days.


I mention this because the English name for the season can derive from two possible roots: 


The first is actually quite banal:  Apparently, the Old English word for Spring was Lentze, meaning “Lengthening” or “the season when the days grow longer.”  


The second possibility is that “Lent” comes from the word “lentil” as in “lentil soup” which is traditionally eaten during largely meatless Lent.


I favor this second etymology because in pretty much all the other European languages the name for the Season of Lent expresses in some way a Christian character and often an explicitly penitential character of the season.


As I mentioned above, the Romance languages all focus on “The Forty Days” as in Jesus’ Forty Days in the Desert: Latin (Quadragesima), Italian (Quaresima), Spanish (Cuaresma), French (Carême).


Further the Central and Northern European languages names for Lent focus on fasting: German (Fastenzeit), Norwegian (Fastetid), Czech (Postná Doba - “Time of fasting”), Polish, Russian, Ukrainian (all express “Time of the Big Fast”).  


So if the English term for the season really did derive simply from the Old English word from Spring (“the Season when the days Lengthened”) then English would be an outlier among the languages of Europe for the season.


So then during this time of the Forty Days of  Lent, we are asked to set aside the things that would distract us from our relationship with God.  Traditionally, we were invited fast during this time, to pray, and to focus on helping those in need.


Let us see then if we can do so now, having perhaps a bowl of lentil soup then to help us along.  And may God bless us all.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

St. Dominic (August 8th)

Image
 This week is another fairly busy one in terms of special feast days or commemorations. On August 5 th , we celebrate the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major , one of the four major basilicas of Rome, the others being St. Peter’s , St. Paul’s Outside the Walls , and St. John Lateran , all associated with Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome . On August 6 th , we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord .  This is a feast which along with the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (celebrated on Oct 7 th ) entered into the Liturgical Calendar somewhat oddly in commemoration of a couple of (at the time) significant Christian military victories against the (Muslim) Turks in the 15 th -16 th centuries – the Hungarian lifting of the Turkish Siege of Belgrade (1456) in the first case and victory in the Naval Battle of Lepanto (1571) a century later in the second.   Over the course of the centuries, memory of the martial origins of the...
Read more

St. Alfonsus Liguori (Aug 1st)

Image
This week has been a busy one with regards to the Saints. On July 29, we remembered St. Martha , to whom in recent years, the Church also added her sister Mary and brother Lazarus.  Poor "busy bee" St. Martha, she's never gotten the respect that she really deserves ;-).  On July 30th, we remembered St. Peter Chrysologus , a Church father who lived in the 5th Century, a time of a good deal of confusion with the first and then repeated sacking of Rome.  He functioned as the Bishop of Ravenna which became the capital of the region for a time. On July 31st, we remembered St. Ignatius of Loyola , a favorite saint of mine, the founder of the Jesuits, a religious congregation that became famous for its learning, missionary work and spiritual direction all finding root in a man, the future St. Ignatius, who began life hoping to find "glory on the battlefield" as a soldier.  An excellent recent movie about him was Ignatio de Loyola (produced in English by the Jesuits of...
Read more

All Saints (Nov. 1st) and All Souls (Nov. 2nd) Days

Image
After a good number weeks of a large number of saints and/or topics to chose  to write about, this week, this week, the selection is smaller: Oct. 28th, Sts. Simon and Jude , Apostles Nov. 1st, All Saints Nov. 2nd, All Souls Of these, I’m choosing to write about the celebrations of All Saints (Nov 1st) and All Souls (Nov 2nd) . What makes a Saint ?   In the Christian sense, a Saint is a member of the Church, hence baptized and in good standing before both God and the Christian Community (the Church). To non-Catholics this definition would naturally seem rather “parrochial” – What about Gandhi ?  What about Martin Luther King, Jr ?  What about Elie Weisal ?  What about the nice Muslim grandma on our block who, ever dressed in her hijab, would always bring us a lovely plate of baklavas at the end of her family’s celebration of Ramadan? Pretty much every religious tradition faces similar issues.  As we learn to try to live together – and between nuclear...
Read more