Lent began this week with the annual marking of the ashes on Ash Wednesday.
Ashes are used as a reminder to us our lives on this Earth are finite, to try to spur us to reflect on those things that are bigger than our daily concerns, those things we often get so wrapped up in that we find ourselves drowning in them.
As someone who grew up in the Catholic tradition, my life has been deeply steeped in the rhythm of the liturgical year. The church year begins with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the Feast of Christ the King.
The lectionary moves through a three-year cycle, so that every three years, we hear the totality of Scripture proclaimed at Mass during the seasons of the liturgical year.
The Gospel readings included in each liturgy follow the life of Christ from the preparation for his birth during Advent; to the celebration of his birth at Christmas; to “Ordinary Time,” which follows Jesus’s Earthly ministry; then Lent; the Sacred Triduum, which observes Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday; Easter; Pentecost; and ordinary time again, with various feasts scattered throughout the year.
By observing this rhythm each year, our lives are framed around elements of eternity, which include cycles of birth, death and rebirth.
“Eternal Seasons,” a compilation of some of work of the late spiritual writer Henri Nouwen, edited by Michael Ford, takes the reader on a journey through these seasons of the liturgical year, with appropriate meditations and reflections.
As a child growing up in a Catholic school, Lent always seemed to be a very ominous season to me. In all honesty, I dreaded it. Lent was marketed as a time for self-denial, which meant “giving up” something you liked. This was seen as a way to recognize how easily attached to worldly things we can get, and how those things can sometimes get in the way of our relationship with our Creator.
People observe Lent in various ways. Some people still give up something they really like, say ice cream, like they have every year of their lives, as a way of self-denial. In modern times, many people refrain from getting on social media throughout Lent, or from electronic use, as a way to deny themselves.
As I’ve grown in my faith, I’ve come to realize the act of giving something up during Lent, is not intended to be so much an act of self-denial, as it is intended to make more space for the Holy One in our day-to-day lives.
In fact, I now approach Lent in a different way than I did when I was younger. Rather than “giving something up,” I take on a more proactive approach by choosing to add something to my daily routine intended to spiritually enrich my life, such as focused spiritual reading, or a particular form of prayer and meditation I don’t normally practice. By approaching Lent this way, both objectives are met. In making space in my day-to-day routine for focused spiritual study, I am at the same time “giving up” whatever else I would be doing, which for me, is probably time on my laptop.
Throughout my adulthood so far, Lent has become a much more positive experience — a time for pruning of the ego by engaging in practices that help to grow my awareness of and faith in the presence of the Divine in my everyday life. If we simply “give up” something we like during this season, like we always have, we might recognize just how much of a hold some things have on our lives, but we won’t necessarily experience the resulting joy of being drawn closer and closer to the Heart of Love itself.
And drawing closer to the Heart of Love itself, is the REAL reason for Lent, and the real reason for Life itself.
When we approach this season with a slight shift in our mindset, the result becomes not one of lack, but one of spiritual abundance, which is profoundly expressed in the Liturgy of the Resurrection of Christ — also known as Easter.
- SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column that examines spirituality. Contact Jerrilyn Zavada at jzblue33@yahoo.com to share how you engage your spirit in your life and community.