After the risk of an ‘Abstract Lent’ ineffective in our real concrete lives, the risk of a ‘Formal Lent’ duly kept outwardly in terms of fasting, prayer and almsgiving but missing out the deep truth about our inwardly transformation, the risk of an ‘Orphan Lent’ somehow lost and disconnected from Easter and from Pentecost, there is yet another risk: ‘1/2 Lent’, half a Lent.
What do I mean?
Very simple. The big risk is to put around the word Lent two big parenthesis: a start date and an end date. In this way, we have 40 days of Lent, of conversion, of penance, yes, and that’s it!
But this is not the truth about Christian life. In Christianity each so-called strong liturgical season underlines something which is always true across the whole life of a Christian. As we live in time and seasons, so we emphasise one particular aspect of our faith and live it more intensely in different times of the year.
Hence, the Cross is not something we kiss or venerate just on Good Friday. “The Christian”, writes Saint Augustine, “ought to be suspended constantly on this cross through his/her entire life, passed as it is in the midst of temptation. For there is no time in this life when we can tear out the nails”. Lent is not an interval, a parenthesis, but a time of grace to be lived out for the whole duration of my life.
Fasting, intense prayer and almsgiving are not some sort of ‘seasonal Lenten fruits’ but they belong to the whole of our life where we are constantly called to fight against the Devil, the concupiscence of the flesh and the seductions of the world.
It is Lent.
Not an ‘Abstract Lent’, dissociated from our reality.
Not a ‘Formal Lent’, emptied of its deep meaning.
Not an ‘Orphan Lent’, separated from its origin and destination.
No ‘Half a Lent’, no expiring date please!
Father Ivano
