The mystery of Lent (1)

By Dom Prosper Guéranger   |   28 February 2024

Extract from The Liturgical Year

We may be sure that a season so sacred as this of Lent is rich in mysteries. The Church has made it a time of recollection and penance, in preparation for the greatest of all her feasts; she would, therefore, bring into it everything that could excite the faith of her children and encourage them to go through the arduous work of atonement for their sins. During Septuagesima, we had the number seventy, which reminded us of those seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, after which, God’s chosen people, being purified from idolatry, was to return to Jerusalem and celebrate the Pasch. It is the number forty that the Church now brings before us — a number, as Saint Jerome observes, which denotes punishment and affliction (In Ezechiel, 29).

Let us remember the forty days and forty nights of the deluge (Gen 7:12), sent by God in his anger, when he repented that he had made man, and destroyed the whole human race, with the exception of one family. Let us consider how the Hebrew people, in punishment for their ingratitude, wandered forty years in the desert, before they were permitted to enter the promised land (Num 14:33). Let us listen to our God commanding the prophet Ezechiel to lie forty days on his right side, as a figure of the siege, which was to bring destruction on Jerusalem (Ez 4:6).

There are two, in the Old Testament, who represent, in their own persons, the two manifestations of God: Moses, who typifies the Law; and Elias, who is the figure of the Prophets. Both of these are permitted to approach God — the first on Sinai (Ex 24:18), the second on Horeb (3 Kings 19:8) — but both of them have to prepare for the great favour by an expiatory fast of forty days.

With these mysterious facts before us, we can understand why it was that the Son of God, having become man for our salvation and wishing to subject himself to the pain of fasting, chose the number of forty days. The institution of Lent is thus brought before us with everything that can impress the mind with its solemn character, and with its power of appeasing God and purifying our souls. Let us, therefore, look beyond the little world which surrounds us, and see how the whole Christian universe is, at this very time, offering this forty days’ penance as a sacrifice of propitiation to the offended majesty of God; and let us hope, that, as in the case of the Ninivites, he will mercifully accept this year’s offering of our atonement, and pardon us our sins.

The number of our days of Lent is, then, a holy mystery: let us, now, learn from the liturgy, in what light the Church views her children during these forty days. She considers them as an immense army, fighting, day and night, against their spiritual enemies. We remember how, on Ash Wednesday, she calls Lent a Christian warfare. Yes — in order that we may have that newness of life, which will make us worthy to sing once more our Alleluia — we must conquer our three enemies: the devil, the flesh, and the world. We are fellow combatants with our Jesus, for he, too, submits to the triple temptation, suggested to him by Satan in person. Therefore, we must have on our armour, and watch unceasingly. And whereas it is of the utmost importance that our hearts be spirited and brave, the Church gives us a war song of heaven’s own making, which can fire even cowards with hope of victory and confidence in God’s help: it is the ninetieth Psalm, Qui habitat in adjutorio (in the Office of Compline). She inserts the whole of it in the Mass of the First Sunday of Lent, and, every day, introduces several of its verses in the ferial Office.

She there tells us to rely on the protection, wherewith our heavenly Father covers us, as “with a shield” — Scuto circumdabit te veritas ejus (in the Office of None); “to hope under the shelter of his wings” — Et sub pennis ejus sperabi (Sext); to have confidence in him, for that he will “deliver us from the snare of the hunter” — Ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium (Tierce) — who had robbed us of the holy liberty of the children of God; to rely upon the succour of the holy angels, who are our brothers, to whom our Lord “hath given charge that they keep us in all our ways” — Angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis (Lauds and Vespers) — and who, when our Jesus permitted Satan to tempt him, were the adoring witnesses of his combat, and approached him, after his victory, proffering to him their service and homage. Let us get well into us these sentiments wherewith the Church would have us be inspired; and during our six weeks’ campaign, let us often repeat this admirable canticle, which so fully describes what the soldiers of Christ should be and feel in this season of the great spiritual warfare.

But the Church is not satisfied with thus animating us to the contest with our enemies — she would also have our minds engrossed with thoughts of deepest import; and for this end, she puts before us three great subjects, which she will gradually unfold to us between this and the great Easter solemnity. Let us be all attention to these soul-stirring and instructive lessons.

And firstly, there is the conspiracy of the Jews against our Redeemer. It will be brought before us in its whole history, from its first formation to its final consummation on the great Friday, when we shall behold the Son of God hanging on the wood of the Cross. The infamous workings of the synagogue will be brought before us so regularly, that we shall be able to follow the plot in all its details. We shall be inflamed with love for the august Victim, whose meekness, wisdom and dignity bespeak a God. The divine drama, which began in the cave of Bethlehem, is to close on Calvary; we may assist at it, by meditating on the passages of the Gospel read to us, by the Church, during these days of Lent.

The second of the subjects offered to us, for our instruction, requires that we should remember how the feast of Easter is to be the day of new birth for our catechumens; and how, in the early ages of the Church, Lent was the immediate and solemn preparation given to the candidates for Baptism. The holy liturgy of the present season retains much of the instruction she used to give to the catechumens; and as we listen to her magnificent lessons from both the Old and the New Testament, whereby she completed their initiation, we ought to think with gratitude on how we were not required to wait years before being made Children of God, but were mercifully admitted to baptism, even in our Infancy. We shall be led to pray for those new catechumens, who this very year, in far distant countries, are receiving instructions from their zealous missioners, and are looking forward, as did the postulants of the primitive Church, to that grand feast of our Saviour’s victory over death, when they are to be cleansed in the waters of baptism and receive from the contact a new being — regeneration.

Thirdly, we must remember how, formerly, the public penitents, who had been separated, on Ash Wednesday, from the assembly of the faithful, were the object of the Church’s maternal solicitude during the whole forty days of Lent, and were to be admitted to reconciliation on Maundy Thursday, if their repentance were such as to merit this public forgiveness. We shall have the admirable course of instructions, which were originally designed for these penitents, and which the liturgy, faithful as she ever is to such traditions, still retains for our sakes. As we read these sublime passages of the Scripture, we shall naturally think upon our own sins, and on what easy terms they were pardoned us; whereas, had we lived in other times, we should have probably been put through the ordeal of a public and severe penance. This will excite us to fervour, for we shall remember, that, whatever changes the indulgence of the Church may lead her to make in her discipline, the justice of our God is ever the same. We shall find in all this an additional motive for offering to his divine Majesty the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and we shall go through our penances with that cheerful eagerness, which the conviction of our deserving much severer ones always brings with it.

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