Lent - A Reflection on its Meaning

“What are you giving up for Lent?” is the normal discussion every year as this most holy season rolls around and the thoughts of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving are on the minds of people attending services on Ash Wednesday.

My response has been for a number of years to what I am giving up is nothing! Usually I looked to see how my presence with people who needed more attention and love could stir a reaction that represented the gift of reaching out in some positive manner is more important than eliminating from my diet of normal adherence to everyday conveniences could accomplish.

The Church teaches that some type of reflection bordering on the Death/Resurrection of Christ should become the center of our thought process during these next 40 days of church attendance, prayer, and almsgiving in a way that reminds us of the need to change our hearts, thinking, and approach to what really is important as Catholics, and center on Christ’s Passion, Death/Resurrection.

This year will be different for me since many of my writings (no less than 18, including this one) have touched on the essence of the Paschal Mystery and what the real meaning of this most alluring season of Lent/Easter presents to me. It is here, in the Paschal Mystery, that the real exercise of a Lenten Reflection should begin, not just for me but perhaps everyone. Let me begin by expressing how the Paschal Mystery and its very essence is the manner in which to prepare for Easter and the Resurrection of Christ.

Before time began, as we call the existence of the world (however it appears to us) God existed. There was nothing until God ordained something from nothing would be. We need to go back in time starting with Genesis and move forward many centuries: to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob-to the Prophets, Kings, down to John the Baptist and relive a history of Salvation ordained by God to make amends for the rejection of Him by mankind and to pay the ransom occurred by us to God, by God. This is the beginning of the Paschal Mystery which brings the Incarnation of Christ Jesus, His life of teaching about His Father’s Forgiveness and Eternal Love, to His Passion, Death/Resurrection and our ultimate Salvation for eternity. This is the complete Paschal Mystery covering the reason for it and the culmination during the Easter Triduum.

Like any activity in life that looks to a perfect ending, must have a beginning in which to grow from, to make sense of the final chapter of the event. Without that, there is no sense to its existence. For us, God’s Creation, without an understanding of what we call Divine Justice, our preparation for the Greatest Spiritual Event - Easter goes nowhere, But, once we see why all the events throughout biblical history and the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding us within our faith journey the Life of Jesus Christ through His Passion, Death/Resurrection now has a meaning we can connect with and share ultimately in the Mystagogy period; A time to grow in deepening one's grasp of the Paschal Mystery; not just for neophytes or newly accepted persons into the Catholic Faith, but for all in the community. This is why a deep meditation on the Paschal Mystery during Lent and through the Easter celebration can be essential to finding Grace and growing in something more suited to Lenten Meditation than just eliminating things to find Christ.

Seek whatever helps you to find that complete unifying action for Lent and the three-day Easter Triduum, but become one with Christ in this season of a walk to Calvary and a feeling of His Passion given for you and me. The blood He shed becomes our redemption and the way of the Cross is the place to start.

A note on the connected words Death/Resurrection; we are told that this was not two separate events but a two-part single event that connects both. There is no Resurrection without death; and death with no Resurrection would be Heresy.