Dom
Prosper Gueranger
The
History of Lent
The Forty Days’
Fast, which we call Lent,1
is the Church’s
preparation for Easter, and was instituted at the very commencement
of Christianity. Our Blessed Lord Himself sanctioned it by His
fasting forty days and forty nights in the desert; and though He
would not impose it on the world by an express commandment (which,
then, could not have been open to the power of dispensation), yet He
showed plainly enough by His own example, that fasting,
which God had so frequently ordered in the Old Law, was to be also
practised by the children of the New.
The disciples of St.
John the Baptist came, one day, to Jesus, and said to Him: Why do we
and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast? And
Jesus said to them: Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as
long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the
bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.2
Hence, we find it mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles how the
disciples of our Lord, after the foundation of the Church, applied
themselves to fasting. In their Epistles, also, they recommended it
to the faithful. Nor could it be otherwise. Though the divine
mysteries by which our Saviour wrought our redemption, have been
consummated — yet are we still sinners, and where there is sin
there must be expiation.
The Apostles,
therefore, legislated for our weakness, by instituting, at the very
commencement of the Christian Church, that the Solemnity of Easter
should be preceded by a universal fast; and it was only natural, that
they should have made this period of Penance to consist of Forty
Days, seeing that our Divine Master had consecrated that number by
His own fast. St. Jerome, St. Leo the Great, St. Cyril of Alexandria,
St. Isidore of Seville, and others of the Holy Fathers, assure us
that Lent was instituted by the Apostles, although, at the
commencement, there was not any uniform way of observing it.
We have already seen in
our Septuagesima that the Orientals begin their Lent much earlier
than the Latins owing to their custom of never fasting on Saturdays
(or, in some places, even on Thursdays). They are, consequently,
obliged, in order to make up the forty days, to begin the Lenten Fast
on the Monday preceding our Sexagesima Sunday. These are the kind of
exceptions which prove the rule. We have also shown how the Latin
Church — which, even so late as the sixth century, kept only
thirty-six fasting days during the six weeks of Lent (for the Church
has never allowed Sundays to be kept as days of fast) — thought
proper to add, later on, the last four days of Quinquagesima, in
order that her Lent might contain exactly Forty Days of Fast.
The whole subject of
Lent has been so often and so fully treated, that we shall abridge,
as much as possible, the history we are now giving. The nature of our
work forbids us to do more than insert what is essential for the
entering into the spirit of each Season. God grant, that we may
succeed in showing to the faithful the importance of the holy
institution of Lent! Its influence on the spiritual life, and on the
very salvation, of each one among us, can never be over-rated.
Lent, then, is a time
consecrated, in an especial manner, to penance; and this penance is
mainly practised by fasting. Fasting is an abstinence which man
voluntarily imposes on himself as an expiation for sin and which,
during Lent, is practised in obedience to the general law of the
Church. According to the actual discipline of the Western Church, the
Fast of Lent is not more rigorous than that prescribed for the Vigils
of certain Feasts, and for the Ember Days; but it is kept up for
Forty successive Days, with the single interruption of the
intervening Sundays.
We deem it unnecessary
to show the importance and advantages of fasting. The Sacred
Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, are filled with the
praises of this holy practice. The traditions of every nation of the
world testify the universal veneration, in which it has ever been
held, for there is not a people, nor a religion, however much it may
have lost the purity of primitive traditions, which is not impressed
with this conviction — that man may appease his God by subjecting
his body to penance.
St. Basil, St. John
Chrysostom, St. Jerome and St. Gregory the Great make the remark that
the commandment put upon our first parents, in the earthly paradise
was one of abstinence, and that it was by their not exercising this
virtue that they brought every kind of evil on themselves and us
their children. The life of privation, which the king of creation had
thenceforward to lead on the earth — (for the earth was to yield
him nothing of its own natural growth, save thorns and thistles)—
was the clearest possible exemplification of the law of penance
imposed by the anger of God on rebellious man.
During the two thousand
and more years, which preceded the Deluge, men had no other food than
the fruits of the earth, and these were only got by the toil of hard
labour. But when God, as we have already observed, mercifully
shortened man’s life
(that so he might have less time and power for sin) — He permitted
him to eat the flesh of animals as an additional nourishment in that
state of deteriorated strength. It was then, also, that Noah, guided
by a divine inspiration, extracted the juice of the grape, which thus
formed a second stay for human debility.
Fasting, then, is the
abstaining from such nourishments as these, which were permitted for
the support of bodily strength. And firstly, it consisted in
abstinence from flesh-meat because it is a food that was given to man
by God out of condescension to his weakness, and not as one
absolutely essential for the maintenance of life. Its privation,
greater or less according to the regulations of the Church, is
essential to the very notion of fasting. Thus, whilst in many
countries, the use of eggs, milk-meats, and even dripping and lard,
is tolerated — the abstaining from flesh-meat is everywhere
maintained as being essential to fasting. For many centuries eggs and
milk-meats were not allowed because they come under the class of
animal food: even to this day they are forbidden in the Eastern
Churches and are only allowed in the Latin Church by virtue of an
annual dispensation. The precept of abstaining from flesh-meat is so
essential to Lent that even on Sundays, when the fasting is
interrupted, abstinence is an obligation, binding even on those who
are dispensed from the fasts of the week, unless there be a special
dispensation granted for eating meat on the Sundays.
In the early ages of
Christianity, fasting included also the abstaining from wine, as we
learn from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom,
Theophilus of Alexandria and others. In the West this custom soon
fell into disuse. The Eastern Christians kept it up much longer, but
even with them it has ceased to be considered as obligatory. Lastly,
fasting includes the depriving ourselves of some portion of our
ordinary food, inasmuch as it only allows the taking of one meal
during the day. Though the modifications introduced from age to age
in the discipline of Lent are very numerous, yet the points we have
here mentioned belong to the very essence of fasting, as is evident
from the universal practice of the Church.
It was the custom with
the Jews, in the Old Law, not to take the one meal, allowed on
fasting days, till sunset. The Christian Church adopted the same
custom. It was scrupulously practised for many centuries even in our
Western countries. But about the ninth century some relaxation began
to be introduced in the Latin Church. Thus, we have a Capitularium of
Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans, (who lived at that period) protesting
against the practice which some had of taking their repast at the
hour of None, that is to say, about three o’clock
in the afternoon. The relaxation, however, gradually spread, for in
the tenth century we find the celebrated Hatherius, Bishop of Verona,
acknowledging that the faithfull had permission to break their fast
at the hour of None. We meet with a sort of reclamation made as late
as the eleventh century by a Council held at Rouen which forbids the
faithful to take their repast before Vespers will have begun to be
sung in the Church at the end of None, but this shows us that the
custom had already begun of anticipating the hour of Vespers, in
order that the faithful might take their meal earlier in the day.
Up to within a short
period before this time it had been the custom not to celebrate Mass
on days of fasting, until the Office of None had been sung (which was
about three o’clock in
the afternoon) — and also not to sing Vespers till sunset. When the
discipline regarding fasting began to relax, the Church still
retained the order of her Offices which had been handed down from the
earliest times. The only change she made was to anticipate the hour
for Vespers, and this entailed the celebrating Mass and None much
earlier in the day — so early, indeed, that when custom had so
prevailed as to authorise the faithful taking their repast at midday,
all the Offices, even the Vespers, were over before that hour.
In the twelfth century
the custom of breaking one’s
fast at the hour of None everywhere prevailed, as we learn from Hugh
of Saint-Victor, and in the thirteenth century it was sanctioned by
the teaching of the school-men. Alexander Hales declares most
expressly that such a custom was lawful, and St. Thomas Aquinas is
equally decided in the same opinion.
But even the fasting
till None (i. e. three o’clock)
was found too severe, and a still further relaxation was considered
to be necessary. At the close of the thirteenth century we have the
celebrated Franciscan, Richard of Middleton, teaching that they who
break their fast at the Hour of Sext, (i.e. midday) are not to be
considered as transgressing the precept of the Church, and the reason
he gives is this: that the custom of doing so had already prevailed
in many places, and that fasting does not consist so much in the
lateness of the hour at which the faithful take their refreshment, as
in their taking but one meal during the twenty-four hours.
The fourteenth century
gave weight, both by universal custom and theological authority, to
the opinion held by Richard of Middleton. It will, perhaps, suffice
if we quote the learned Dominican, Durandus, Bishop of Meaux, who
says that there can be no doubt as to the lawfulness of taking one’s
repast at midday, and he adds that such was then the custom observed
by the Pope and Cardinals, and even the Religious Orders. We cannot,
therefore, be surprised at finding this opinion maintained in the
tenth century by such grave authors as St. Antoninus, Cardinal
Cajetan, and others. Alexander Hales and St. Thomas sought to prevent
the relaxation going beyond the Hour of None, but their zeal was
disappointed, and the present discipline was established, we might
almost say, during their lifetime.
But, whilst this
relaxation of taking the repast so early in the day as twelve o’clock
rendered fasting less difficult in one way, it made it more severe in
another. The body grew exhausted by the labours of the long second
half of the twenty-four hours, and the meal that formerly closed the
day and satisfied the cravings of fatigue, had been already taken. It
was found necessary to grant some refreshment for the evening, and it
was called a Collation. The word was taken from the Benedictine Rule,
which, for long centuries before this change in the Lenten observance
had allowed a Monastic Collation. St. Benedict’s
Rule prescribed a great many fasts, over and above the ecclesiastical
Fast of Lent, but it made this great distinction between the two:
that while Lent obliged the monks, as well as the rest of the
faithful, to abstain from food till sunset, these monastic fasts
allowed the repast to be taken at the hour of None. But, as the monks
had heavy manual labour during the summer and autumn months (which
was the very time when these Fasts “till None” occurred several
days of each week, and indeed every day from the fourteenth of
September), the Abbot was allowed by the Rule to grant his religious
permission to take a small measure of wine before Compline as a
refreshment after the fatigues of the afternoon. It was taken by all
at one and the same time, during the evening reading, which was
called Conference, (in latin Collatio) because it was mostly
taken from the celebrated Conferences (Collationes) of
Cassian. Hence, this evening monastic refreshment got the name of
Collation.
We find the Assembly,
or Chapter of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in 817 extending this indulgence
even to the Lenten fast on account of the great fatigue entailed by
the Offices, which the monks had to celebrate during this holy
Season. But experience showed that unless something solid were
allowed to be taken together with the wine, the evening Collation
would be an injury to the health of many of the Religious.
Accordingly, towards the close of the fourteenth, or the beginning of
the fifteenth century, the usage was introduced of taking a morsel of
bread with the Collation beverage.
As a matter of course,
these mitigations of the ancient severity of fasting soon found their
way from the cloister into the world. The custom of taking something
to drink on Fasting Days out of the time of the repast was gradually
established, and even so early as the thirteenth century we have St.
Thomas Aquinas discussing the question whether or no drink is to be
considered as a breaking of the precept of fasting. He answers in the
negative, and yet he does not allow that anything solid may be taken
with the drink. But when it had become the universal practice (as it
did in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and still more
fixedly during the whole of the fourteenth) that the one meal on
Fasting Days was taken at mid day, a mere beverage was found
insufficient to give support, and there was added to it bread, herbs,
fruits, &o. Such was the practice, both in the world and the
cloister. It was, however, clearly understood by all that these
eatables were not to be taken in such quantity as to turn the
Collation into a second meal.
Thus did the decay of
piety, and the general deterioration of bodily strength among the
people of the Western nations, infringe on the primitive observance
of fasting. To make our history of these humiliating changes anything
like complete, we must mention one more relaxation. For several
centuries, abstinence from flesh-meat included likewise the
prohibition of every article of food that belonged to what is called
the animal kingdom, with the single exception of fish, which, on
account of its cold nature, as also for several mystical reasons,
founded on the Sacred Scriptures, was always permitted to be taken by
those who fasted. Every sort of milk-meat was forbidden, and in Rome,
even to this day, butter and cheese are not permitted during Lent,
except on those days on which permission to eat meat is granted.
Dating from the ninth
century, the custom of eating milk-meats during Lent began to be
prevalent in Western Europe, more especially in Germany and the
northern countries. The Council of Kedlimburg held in the eleventh
century made an effort to put a stop to the practice as an abuse, but
without effect. These Churches maintained that they were in the
right, and defended their custom by the dispensations (though, in
reality, only temporary ones) granted them by several Sovereign
Pontiffs: the dispute ended by their being left peaceably to enjoy
what they claimed.
The Churches of France
resisted this innovation up to the sixteenth century, but in the
seventeenth they too yielded, and milk-meats were taken during Lent
throughout the whole kingdom. As some reparation for this breach of
ancient discipline, the city of Paris instituted a solemn rite by
which she wished to signify her regret at being obliged to such a
relaxation. On Quinquagesima Sunday all the different parishes went
in procession to the Church of Notre Dame. The Dominicans,
Franciscans, Carmelites and Augustinians took part in the procession.
The Metropolitan Chapter, and the four parishes that were subject to
it, held, on the same day, a Station in the courtyard of the palace,
and sang an Anthem before the relic of the True Cross which was
exposed in the Sainte Chapelle. These pious usages which were
intended to remind the people of the difference between the past and
the present observance of Lent continued to be practised till the
Revolution.
But this grant for the
eating milk-meats during Lent did not include eggs. Here, the ancient
discipline was maintained, at least this far — that eggs were not
allowed, save by a dispensation which had to be renewed each year. In
Rome they are only allowed on days when flesh-meat may be taken. In
other places, they are allowed on some days, and on others,
especially during Holy Week, are forbidden. Invariably do we find the
Church, seeking, out of anxiety for the spiritual advantage of her
children, to maintain all she can of those penitential observances,
by which they may satisfy Divine Justice. It was with this intention
that Pope Benedict XIV, alarmed at the excessive facility with which
dispensation were then obtained, renewed by a solemn Constitution,
(dated June 10, 1745) the prohibition of eating fish and meat at the
same meal on fasting days.
The same Pope, whose
spirit of moderation has never been called in question, had no sooner
ascended the papal throne than he addressed an Encyclical Letter to
the Bishops of the Catholic world expressing his heartfelt grief at
seeing the great relaxation that was introduced among the faithful by
indiscreet and unnecessary dispensations. The Letter is dated May
30th, 1741. We extract from it the following passage: “The
observance of Lent is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it,
we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the Cross of Christ. By it,
we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it, we gain strength
against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly
help. Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it
would be a detriment to God's glory, a disgrace to the Catholic
religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted,
but that such negligence would become the source of misery to the
world, of " public calamity, and of private woe.”
More than a hundred
years have elapsed since this solemn warning of the Vicar of Christ
was given to the world, and during that time the relaxation he
inveighed against has gone on gradually increasing. How few
Christians do we meet who are strict observers of Lent, even in its
present mild form! The long list of general dispensations granted
each year by the bishops to their flocks would lead us to suppose
that the immense majority of the faithful would be scrupulously exact
in the fulfilment of the fasting and abstinence still remaining, but
is such the case?
And must there not result from this ever-growing spirit of immortification a general effeminacy of character which will lead, at last, to frightful social disorders? The sad predictions of Pope Benedict XVI are but too truly verified. Those nations among whose people the spirit and practice of penance are extinct are heaping against themselves the wrath of God, and provoking His justice to destroy them by one or other of these scourges — civil discord or conquest. In our own country, there is an inconsistency which must strike every thinking mind: the observance of the Lord’s Day, on the one side, the national non-observance of days of penance and fasting, on the other. The first is admirable, and (if we except puritanical extravagances), bespeaks a deep-rooted sense of religion, but the second is one of the worst presages for the future. No: the word of God is too plain. Unless we do penance we will perish. But, if our ease-loving and sensual generation were to return, like the Ninivites, to the long-neglected way of penance and expiation — who knows, but that the arm of God which is already raised to strike us may give us blessing, and not chastisement?
Let us resume our
history, and seek our edification in studying the fervour with which
the Christians of former times used to observe Lent. We will first
offer to our readers a few instances of the manner in which
dispensations were given.
In the thirteenth
century, the Archbishop of Braga applied to the reigning Pontiff,
Innocent III, asking him what compensation he ought to require of his
people, who, in consequence of a dearth of the ordinary articles of
food, had been necessitated to eat meat during the Lent? He at the
same time consulted the Pontiff as to how he was to act in the case
of the sick who asked for a dispensation from abstinence. The answer
given by Innocent, which is inserted in the Canon Law, is, as we
might expect, full of considerateness and charity, but we learn from
this fact that such was then the respect for the law of Lent that it
was considered necessary to apply to the Sovereign Pontiff when
dispensations were sought for. We find many such instances in the
history of the Church.
Wenceslaus, King of
Bohemia, being seized with a malady which rendered it dangerous to
his health to take Lenten diet — he applied in 1297 to Pope
Boniface VIII for leave to eat meat. The Pontiff commissioned two
Cistercian Abbots to enquire into the real state of the Prince’s
health: they were to grant the dispensation sought for if they found
it necessary, but on the following conditions: that the King had not
bound himself by a vow for life to fast during Lent; that the
Fridays, Saturdays, and the Vigil of St. Matthias were to be excluded
from the dispensation; and, lastly, that the King was not to take his
meal in the presence of others, and was to observe moderation in what
he took.
In the fourteenth
century we meet with two Briefs of dispensation granted by Clement VI
in 1351 to John, King of France, and to his Queen consort. In the
first, the Pope, taking into consideration that during the wars in
which the King is engaged he frequently finds himself in places where
fish can with difficulty be procured, grants to the Confessor of the
King the power of allowing, both to his majesty and his suite, the
use of meat on days of abstinence, excepting, however, the whole of
Lent, all Fridays of the year, and certain Vigils provided, moreover,
that neither he, nor those who accompany him, are under a vow of
perpetual abstinence. In the second Brief the same Pope, replying to
the petition made him by the King for a dispensation from fasting,
again commissions his Majesty’s
present and future Confessors to dispense both the King and his
Queen, after having consulted with their physicians.
A few years later, that
is, in 1376, Pope Gregory XI sent a Brief in favour of Charles V,
King of France, and of Jane, his Queen. In this Brief he delegates to
their Confessor the power of allowing them the use of eggs and
milk-meats during Lent, should their physician think they stand in
need of such dispensation, but he tells both physicians and Confessor
that he puts it on their consciences. and that they will have to
answer before God for their decision. The same permission is granted
also to their servants and cooks, but only as far as it is needed for
their tasting the food to be served to their Majesties.
The fifteenth century
also furnishes us with instances of this applying to the Holy See for
Lenten dispensations. We will cite the Brief addressed by Xystus IV
in 1483 to James III, King of Scotland, in which he grants him
permission to eat meat on days of abstinence, provided his Confessor
considers the dispensation needed. In the following century, we have
Julius II granting a like dispensation to John, King of Denmark, and
to his Queen Christina, and a few years later Clement VII giving one
to the Emperor Charles V, and, again, to Henry II of Navarre, and to
his Queen Margaret.
Thus were princes
themselves treated three centuries ago when they sought for a
dispensation from the sacred law of Lent. What are we to think of the
present indifference with which it is kept? What comparison can be
made between the Christians of former times, who, deeply impressed
with the fear of God’s
judgements and with the spirit of penance, cheerfully went through
these forty days of mortification — and those of our own days, when
love of pleasure and self-indulgence is for ever lessening man’s
horror for sin? Where there is little or no fear of having to penance
ourselves for sin, there is so much the less restraint to keep us
from committing it.
Where now that simple
and innocent joy at Easter which our forefathers used to show when,
after their severe fast of Lent, they partook of substantial and
savoury food? The peace which long and sharp mortification ever
brings to the conscience gave them the capability, not to say the
right, of being light-hearted as they returned to the comforts of
life which they had denied themselves in order to spend forty days in
penance, recollection and retirement from the world. This leads us to
mention some further details which will assist the Catholic reader to
understand what Lent was in the Ages of Faith.
It was a season, during
which, not only all amusements and theatrical entertainments were
forbidden by the civil authority, but when even the law courts were
closed; and this, in order to secure that peace and calm of heart
which is so indispensable for the soul’s
self-examination and reconciliation with her offended Maker. As early
as 380, Gratian and Theodosius enacted that judges should suspend all
law-suits and proceedings during the forty days preceding Easter. The
Theodosian Code contains several regulations of this nature, and we
find Councils held in the ninth century urging the kings of that
period to enforce the one we have mentioned, seeing that it had been
sanctioned by the Canons and approved of by the Fathers of the
Church! These admirable Christian traditions have long since fallen
into disuse in the countries of Europe, but they are still kept up
among the Turks who during the forty days of their Ramadan forbid all
law proceedings. What a humiliation for us Christians!
Hunting, too, was for
many ages considered as forbidden during Lent — the spirit of the
holy season was too sacred to admit such exciting and noisy sport.
The Pope, St. Nicholas I, in the ninth century, forbade it the
Bulgarians who had been recently converted to the Christian Faith.
Even so late as the thirteenth century we find St. Raymund of
Pegnafort teaching that they who, during Lent, take part in the
chase, if it be accompanied by certain circumstances, which he
specifies, cannot be excused from sin. This prohibition has long
since been a dead letter, but St. Charles Borromeo in one of his
Synods re-established it in his province of Milan.
But we cannot be
surprised that hunting should be forbidden during Lent, when we
remember that in those Christian times war itself, which is sometimes
so necessary for the welfare of a nation, was suspended during this
holy Season. In the fourth century we have the Emperor Constantine
the Great enacting that no military exercises should be allowed on
Sundays and Fridays, out of respect to our Lord Jesus Christ who
suffered and rose again on these two days, as also in order not to
disturb the peace and repose needed for the due celebration of such
sublime mysteries. The discipline of the Latin Church in the ninth
century enforced everywhere the suspension of war, during the whole
of Lent, except in cases of necessity. The instructions of Pope St.
Nicholas I to the Bulgarians recommend the same observance, and we
learn from a letter of St. Gregory VII to Desiderius, Abbot of Monte
Cassino, that it was kept up in the eleventh century.
We have an instance of
its being practised in our own country in the twelfth century when,
as William of Malmesbury relates, the Empress Matilda, Countess of
Anjou, and daughter of King Henry, was contesting the right of
succession to the throne against Stephen, Count of Boulogne. The two
armies were in sight of each other, but an armistice was demanded and
observed, for it was the Lent of 1143.
Our readers have heard,
no doubt, of the admirable institution called God’s
Truce, by which the Church in the eleventh century succeeded in
preventing much bloodshed. It was a law that forbade the carrying of
arms from Wednesday evening till Monday morning throughout the year.
It was sanctioned by the authority of Popes and Councils, and
enforced by all Christian Princes. It was a continuing, during four
days of each week of the year, the Lenten discipline of the
suspension of war. Our saintly King, Edward the Confessor, gave a
still greater extension to it, by passing a law (which was confirmed
by his successor, William the Conqueror) that God’s
Truce should be observed without cessation from the beginning of
Advent to the Octave of Easter, from the Ascension to the Whitsuntide
Octave, on all the Ember Days, on the Vigils of all feasts and,
lastly, every week from None on Wednesday till Monday morning, which
had been already prescribed.
In the Council of
Clermont held in 1095, Pope Urban II, after drawing up the
regulations for the Crusades, used his authority in extending the
God’s Truce as it was
then observed during Lent. His decree, which was renewed in the
Council held the following year at Rouen, was to this effect: that
all war proceedings should be suspended from Ash Wednesday to the
Monday after the Octave of Pentecost, and on all Vigils and Feasts of
the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles, over and above what was already
regulated for each week, that is, from Wednesday evening to Monday
morning.
Thus did the world
testify its respect for the holy observances of Lent, and borrow some
of its wisest institutions from the seasons and feasts of the
liturgical year. The influence of this Forty-Days’
penance was great, too, on each individual. It renewed man’s
energies, gave him fresh vigour in battling with his animal
instincts, and, by the restraint it put on sensuality, ennobled the
soul. Yes, there was restraint everywhere, and the present discipline
of the Church which forbids the solemnisation of Marriage during Lent
reminds Christians of that holy continency, which, for many ages, was
observed during the whole Forty Days as a precept, and of which the
most sacred of the liturgical books — the Missal—still retains
the recommendation.
It is with reluctance
that we close our history of Lent, and leave untouched so many other
interesting details. For instance, what treasures we could have laid
open to our readers from the Lenten usages of the Eastern Churches,
which have retained so much of the primitive discipline! We cannot,
however, resist devoting our last page to the following particulars.
We mentioned in the
preceding Volume, that the Sunday we call Septuagesima, is called, by
the Greeks, Prophone, because the opening of Lent is proclaimed on
that day. The Monday following it is counted as the first day of the
next week, which is Apocreos, the name they give to the Sunday which
closes that week, and which is our Sexagesima Sunday. The Greek
Church begins abstinence from flesh-meat with this week. Then, on the
morrow, Monday, commences the week called Tyrophagos, which ends with
the Sunday of that name, and which corresponds to our Quinquagesima.
White-meats are allowed during that week. Finally, the morrow is the
first day of the first week of Lent, and the fast begins, with all
its severity, on that Monday, whilst, in the Latin Church, it is
deferred to the Wednesday. During the whole of Lent (at least, of the
Lent preceding Easter), milk-meats, eggs and even fish are forbidden.
The only food permitted to be eaten with bread is vegetables, honey,
and, for those who live near the sea, shell-fish. For many centuries,
wine might not be taken but it is now permitted, and on the
Annunciation and Palm Sunday a dispensation is granted for eating
fish.
Besides the Lent
preparatory to the feast of Easter, the Greeks keep three others in
the year: that which is called of the Apostles, which lasts from the
Octave of Pentecost to the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, that of
the Virgin Mary, which begins on the first of August and ends with
the Vigil of the Assumption, and lastly, the Lent of preparation for
Christmas, which consists of forty days. The fasting and abstinence
of these three Lents are not quite so severe as those observed during
the great Lent. The other Christian nations of the East also observe
several Lents, and more rigidly than the Greeks, but all these
details would lead us too far. We, therefore, pass on to the
Mysteries, which are included in this holy season.
The Mystery of Lent
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.
Let us remember the
forty days and forty nights of the Deluge 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. 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.
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, the second on Horeb— 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. 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, with which our Heavenly Father covers us, as
with a shield, to hope under the shelter of his wings, to have
confidence in Him, for that He will deliver us from the snare of the
hunter who had robbed us of the holy liberty of the children of God;
to rely on the succour of the Holy Angels who are our brothers, to
whom our Lord has given charge that they keep us in all our ways 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 with which 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 will 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 will 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, by
which 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 will 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 will 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 will naturally think on 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 will 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 will find in all this an additional
motive for offering to His Divine Majesty the sacrifice of a contrite
heart, and we will go through our penances with that cheerful
eagerness which the conviction of our deserving much severer ones
always brings with it.
In order to keep up the
character of mournfulness and austerity which is so well-suited to
Lent, the Church for many centuries admitted very few feasts into
this portion of her year, inasmuch as there is always joy, where
there is even a spiritual feast.
In the fourth century
we have the Council of Laodicea forbidding, in its fifty-first canon,
the keeping a feast or commemoration of any saint during Lent,
excepting on the Saturdays or Sundays. The Greek Church rigidly
maintained this point of Lenten discipline; nor was it till many
centuries after the Council of Laodicea that she made an exception
for the twenty-fifth of March on which day she now keeps the Feast of
our Lady’s Annunciation.
The Church of Rome
maintained this same discipline, at least in principle, but she
admitted the Feast of the Annunciation at a very early period, and
somewhat later, the feast of the Apostle St. Matthias, on the
twenty-fourth of February. During the last few centuries, she has
admitted several other feasts into that portion of her general
Calendar which coincides with Lent. Still, she observes a certain
restriction out of respect for the ancient practice.
The reason of the
Church of Rome being less severe on this point of excluding the
saints’ feasts during
Lent is that the Christians of the West have never looked on the
celebration of a feast as incompatible with fasting. The Greeks, on
the contrary, believe that the two are irreconcilable, and as a
consequence of this principle never observe Saturdayas a
fasting-day, because they always keep it as a solemnity, though they
make Holy Saturday an exception, and fast upon it. For the same
reason they do not fast upon the Annunciation.
This strange idea gave
rise in or about the seventh century to a custom which is peculiar to
the Greek Church. It is called the Mass of the Presanctified, that is
to say, consecrated in a previous Sacrifice. On each Sunday of Lent,
the Priest consecrates six Hosts, one of which he receives in that
Mass, but the remaining five are reserved for a simple Communion,
which is made on each of the five following days, without the Holy
Sacrifice being offered. The Latin Church practises this rite only
once in the year, that is, on Good Friday, and this in commemoration
of a sublime mystery which we will explain in its proper place.
This custom of the
Greek Church was evidently suggested by the 49th Canon of the Council
of Laodicea which forbids the offering the Bread of Sacrifice during
Lent, excepting on the Saturdays and Sundays. The Greeks, some
centuries later on, concluded from this Canon that the celebration of
the Holy Sacrifice was incompatible with fasting, and we learn from
the controversy they had in the ninth century with the Legate
Humbert, that the Mass of the Presanctified (which has no other
authority to rest on save a Canon of the famous Council in Trullo
held in 692), was justified by the Greeks on this absurd plea —
that the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord broke the Lenten
Fast.
The Greeks celebrate
this rite in the evening after Vespers, and the priest alone
communicates, as is done now in the Roman Liturgy on Good Friday. But
for many centuries they have made an exception for the Annunciation.
They interrupt the Lenten fast on this feast, they celebrate Mass,
and the faithful are allowed to receive Holy Communion.
The Canon of the
Council of Laodicea was probably never received in the Western
Church. If the suspension of the Holy Sacrifice during Lent was ever
practised in Rome, it was only on the Thursdays, and even that custom
was abandoned in the eighth century, as we learn from Anastasius the
Librarian, who tells us that Pope St. Gregory II, desiring to
complete the Roman Sacramentary, added Masses for the Thursdays of
the first five weeks of Lent. It is difficult to assign the reason of
this interruption of the Mass on Thursdays in the Roman Church, or of
the like custom observed by the Church of Milan on the Fridays of
Lent.
The explanations we
have found in different authors are not satisfactory. As far as Milan
is concerned, we are inclined to think, that not satisfied with the
mere adoption of the Roman usage of not celebrating Mass on Good
Friday, the Ambrosian Church extended the rite to all the Fridays of
Lent.
After thus briefly
alluding to these details, we must close our present Chapter by a few
words on the holy rites, which are now observed during Lent in our
Western Churches. We have explained several of these in our
Septuagesima. The suspension of the Alleluia, the purple vestments,
the laying aside the deacon’s
dalmatic and the subdeacon’s
tunic, the omission of the two joyful canticles (the Gloria in
excelsis, and the Te Deum), the substitution of the mournful Tract
for the Alleluia verse in the Mass, the Benedicamus Domino instead of
the Ite, Missa est, the additional Prayer said over the people after
the Post-communion Collects on Ferial Days, the saying the Vesper
Office before midday, excepting on the Sundays — all these are
familiar to our readers. We have only now to mention, in addition,
the genuflections prescribed for the conclusion of all the Hours of
the Divine Office on Ferias, and the rubric which bids the choir to
kneel, on those same days, during the Canon of the Mass.
There were other
ceremonies peculiar to the season of Lent which were observed in the
Churches of the West but which have now, for many centuries, fallen
into general disuse. We say general, because they are still partially
kept up in some places. Of these rites the most imposing was that of
putting up a large veil between the choir and the altar, so that
neither clergy nor people could look upon the Holy Mysteries
celebrated within the sanctuary.
This veil—which was
called the curtain, and, generally speaking, was of a purple colour —
was a symbol of the penance to which the sinner ought to subject
himself in order to merit the sight of that Divine Majesty before
whose face he had committed so many outrages. It signified, moreover,
the humiliations endured by our Redeemer, who was a stumbling-block
to the proud synagogue. But, as a veil that is suddenly drawn aside,
these humiliations were to give way and be changed into the glories
of the Resurrection. Among other places where this rite is still
observed, we may mention the Metropolitan Church of Paris, Notre
Dante.
It was the custom also,
in many Churches, to veil the crucifix and the statues of the saints
as soon as Lent began, in order to excite the faithful to a livelier
sense of penance, they were deprived of the consolation which the
sight of these holy images always brings to the soul. But this
custom, which is still retained in some places, was less general than
the more expressive one used in the Roman Church, and which we will
explain in our next volume — we mean the veiling of the crucifix
and statues only in Passion Time.
We learn from the
ceremonials of the Middle Ages that during Lent, and particularly on
the Wednesdays and Fridays, processions used frequently to be made
from one church to another. In monasteries these processions were
made in the cloister, and barefooted. This custom was suggested by
the practice of Rome where there is a Station for every day of Lent,
and which, for many centuries, began by a procession to the Stational
Church.
Lastly, the Church has
always been in the habit of adding to her prayers during the Season
of Lent. Her present discipline is, that, on Ferias, in Cathedral and
Collegiate churches (which are not exempted by a custom to the
contrary), the following additions are to be made to the Canonical
Hours: on Mondays, the Office of the Dead; on Wednesday, the Gradual
Psalms, and on Fridays, the Penitential Psalms.
In some Churches,
during the Middle Ages, the whole Psaltery was added each week of
Lent to the usual Office.
The Practice of Lent
After having spent the
three weeks of Septuagesima in meditating on our spiritual
infirmities and the wounds caused in us by sin, we should be ready
to enter upon the penitential season which the Church has now begun.
We have now a clearer knowledge of the justice and holiness of God,
and of the dangers that await an impenitent soul; and, that our
repentance might be earnest and lasting, we have bade farewell to the
vain joys and baubles of the world. Our pride has been humbled by the
prophecy that these bodies would soon be like the ashes that wrote
the memento of death on our foreheads.
During these Forty Days of penance which seem so long to our poor nature, we will not be deprived of the company of our Jesus. He seemed to have withdrawn from us during those weeks of Septuagesima when everything spoke to us of His maledictions on sinful man — but this absence has done us good. It has taught us how to tremble at the voice of God’s anger. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We have found it to be so — the spirit of penance is now active within us because we have feared.
And now, let us look at
the divine object that is before us. It is our Emmanuel, the same
Jesus, but not under the form of the sweet Babe whom we adored in His
Crib. He is grown to the fullness of the age of man and wears the
semblance of a sinner, trembling and humbling Himself before the
Sovereign Majesty of His Father whom we have offended, and to whom He
now offers Himself as the Victim of propitiation. He loves us with a
brother’s love, and
seeing that the season for our doing penance has begun, He comes to
cheer us on by His presence and His own example. We are going to
spend Forty Days in fasting and abstinence — Jesus, who is
innocence itself, goes through the same penance. We have separated
ourselves, for a time, from the pleasures and vanities of the world —
Jesus withdraws from the company and sight of men. We intend to
assist at the Divine Services more assiduously, and pray more
fervently, than at other times — Jesus spends forty days and forty
nights in praying like the humblest suppliant, and all this for us.
We are going to think over our past sins, and bewail them in bitter
grief — Jesus suffers for them and weeps over them in the silence
of the desert, as though He Himself had committed them.
No sooner had He
received Baptism from the hands of St. John, than the Holy Ghost led
Him to the desert. The time had come for His showing Himself to the
world. He would begin by teaching us a lesson of immense importance.
He leaves the saintly Precursor and the admiring multitude that had
seen the divine Spirit descend on Him, and heard the Father’s
voice proclaiming Him to be His Beloved Son. He leaves them and goes
into the desert. Not far from the Jordan there rises a rugged
mountain which has received, in after ages, the name of Quarantana.
It commands a view of the fertile plain of Jericho, the Jordan and
the Dead Sea. It is within a cave of this wild rock that the Son of
God now enters, His only companions being the dumb animals who have
chosen this same for their own shelter. He has no food with which to
satisfy the pangs of hunger. The barren rock can yield Him no drink.
His only bed must be of stone. Here He is to spend Forty Days after
which He will permit the Angels to visit Him and bring Him food. Thus
does our Saviour go before us on the holy path of Lent. He has borne
all its fatigues and hardships, that so we, when called upon to tread
the narrow way of our Lenten Penance, might have His example with
which to silence the excuses, and sophisms, and repugnances, of
self-love and pride. The lesson is here too plainly given not to be
understood. The law of doing penance for sin is here too clearly
shown, and we cannot plead ignorance — let us honestly accept the
teaching and practise it. Jesus leaves the desert where He had spent
the Forty Days, and begins His preaching with these words, which He
addresses to all men: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand. Let us not harden our hearts to this invitation, lest there be
fulfilled in us the terrible threat contained in those other words of
our Redeemer: Unless you will do penance, you will perish.
Now penance consists in
contrition of the soul and in mortification of the body. These two
parts are essential to it. The soul has willed the sin. The body has
frequently co-operated in its commission. Moreover, man is composed
of both soul and body. Both, then, should pay homage to their
Creator. The body is to share with the soul, either the delights of
Heaven, or the torments of Hell. There cannot, therefore, be any
thorough Christian life, or any earnest penance, where the body does
not take part in both with the soul.
But it is the soul
which gives reality to penance. The Gospel teaches this by the
examples it holds out to us of the Prodigal Son, of Magdalene, of
Zacheus, and of Saint Peter. The soul, then, must be resolved to give
up every sin. She must heartily grieve over those she has committed.
She must hate sin. She must shun the occasions of sin. The Sacred
Scriptures have a word for this inward disposition which has been
adopted by the Christian world, and admirably expresses the state of
the soul that has turned away from her sins: this word is conversion.
The Christian should, therefore, during Lent, study to excite himself
to this repentance of heart, and look upon it as the essential
foundation of all his Lenten exercises. Nevertheless, he must
remember that this spiritual penance would be a mere delusion, were
he not to practise mortification of the body. Let him study the
example given him by His Saviour, who grieves, indeed, and weeps over
our sins, but He also expiates them by His bodily sufferings. Hence
it is that the Church — the infallible interpreter of her Divine
Master’s will — tells
us that the repentance of our heart will not be accepted by God
unless it be accompanied by fasting and abstinence.
How great, then, is the
illusion of those Christians who forget their past sins, or compare
themselves with others whose lives they take to have been worse than
their own, and thus satisfied with themselves can see no harm or
danger in the easy life they intend to pass for the rest of their
days! They will tell you that there can be no need of their thinking
of their past sins, for they have made a good Confession! Is not the
life they have led since that time a sufficient proof of their solid
piety? And why should anyone speak to them about God’s
justice and mortification? Accordingly, as soon as Lent approaches
they must get all manner of dispensations. Abstinence is an
inconvenience: fasting has an effect on their health, it would
interfere with their occupations, it is such a change from their
ordinary way of living. Besides, there are so many people who are
better than themselves, and yet who never fast or abstain—and, as
the idea never enters their minds of supplying for the penances
prescribed by the Church with other penitential exercises, such
persons as these, gradually and unsuspectingly lose the Christian
spirit.
The Church sees this
frightful decay of supernatural energy, but she cherishes what is
still left by making her Lenten observances easier year after year.
With the hope of maintaining that little, and of seeing it strengthen
for some better future, she leaves to the justice of God her children
who hearken not to her, when she teaches them how they might, even
now, propitiate his anger. Alas! these her children of whom we are
speaking are quite satisfied that things should be as they are, and
never think of judging their own conduct by the examples of Jesus and
His Saints, or by the undeviating rules of Christian penance.
It is true, there are
exceptions, but how rare they are, especially in our large towns!
Groundless prejudices, idle excuses, bad example — all tend to lead
men from the observance of Lent. Is it not sad to hear people giving
such a reason as this for their not fasting or abstaining — because
they feel them?
Surely they forget that
the very aim of fasting and abstinence is to make these bodies of sin
suffer and feel. And what will they answer on the Day of Judgement
when our Saviour will show them how the very Turks, who were the
disciples of a gross and sensual religion, had the courage to
practise, every year, the forty days’
austerities of their Ramadan?
But their own conduct
will be their loudest accuser. These very persons, who persuade
themselves that they have not strength enough to bear the abstinence
and fasting of Lent, even in their present mitigated form, think
nothing of going through incomparably greater fatigues for the sake
of temporal gains or worldly enjoyments. Constitutions which have
broken down in the pursuit of pleasures — which, to say the least,
are frivolous, and always dangerous — would have kept up all their
vigour, had the laws of God and His Church, and not the desire to
please the world, been the guide of their conduct. But such is the
indifference with which this non-observance of Lent is treated, that
it never excites the slightest trouble or remorse of conscience. And
they who are guilty of it will argue with you that people who lived
in the Middle Ages may perhaps have been able to keep Lent, but that
nowadays it is out of the question. And they can coolly say this in
the face of all that the Church has done to adapt her Lenten
discipline to the physical and moral weakness of the present
generation! How comes it, that while these men have been trained in,
or converted to, the faith of their fathers, they can forget that the
observance of Lent is an essential mark of Catholicity, and that when
the Protestants undertook to reform her in the sixteenth century, one
of their chief grievances was that she insisted on her children
mortifying themselves by fasting and abstinence!
But, it will be asked —
are there, then, no lawful dispensations? We answer that there are,
and that they are more needed now than in former ages, owing to the
general weakness of our constitutions. Still, there is great danger
of our deceiving ourselves. If we have strength to go through great
fatigues when our own self-love is gratified by them, how is it we
are too weak to observe abstinence? If a slight inconvenience deter
us from doing this penance, how will we ever make expiation for our
sins, for expiation is essentially painful to nature? The opinion of
our physician that fasting will weaken us may be false, or it may be
correct, but is not this mortification of the flesh the very object
that the Church aims at, knowing that our soul will profit by the
body being brought into subjection? But let us suppose the
dispensation to be neccessary: that our health would be impaired, and
the duties of our state of life neglected, if we were to observe the
law of Lent to the letter — do we, in such case, endeavour, by
other works of penance, to supply for those which our health does not
allow us to observe?
Are we grieved and
humbled to find ourselves thus unable to join with the rest of the
faithful children of the Church, in bearing the yoke of Lenten
discipline? Do we ask of our Lord to grant us the grace, next year,
of sharing in the merits of our fellow-Christians, and of observing
those holy practices which give the soul an assurance of mercy and
pardon? If we do, the dispensation will not be detrimental to our
spiritual interests, and when the Feast of Easter comes, inviting the
faithful to partake of its grand joys, we may confidently take our
place side by side with those who have fasted, for though our bodily
weakness has not permitted us to keep pace with them exteriorly, our
heart has been faithful to the spirit of Lent.
How long a list of
proofs we could still give of the negligence, into which the modern
spirit of self-indulgence leads so many among us, in regard of
fasting and abstinence! Thus, there are Catholics to be found in
every part of the world who make their Easter Communion and profess
themselves to
be children of the
Catholic Church, who yet have no idea of the obligations of Lent.
Their very notion of fasting and abstinence is so vague that they are
not aware that these two practices are quite distinct one from the
other, and that the dispensation from one does not in any way include
a dispensation from the other. If they have, lawfully or unlawfully
obtained exemption from abstinence, it never so much as enters into
their minds that the obligation of fasting is still binding on them
during the whole Forty Days, or if they have had granted to them a
dispensation from fasting, they conclude that they may eat any kind
of food they wish. Such ignorance as this is the natural result of
the indifference with which the commandments and traditions of the
Church are treated.
So far, we have been
speaking of the non-observance of Lent in its relation to individuals
and Catholics. Let us now say a few words upon the influence which
that same non-observance has upon a whole people or nation. There are
but few social questions which have not been ably and spiritedly
treated of by the public writers of the age who have devoted their
talents to the study of what is called Political Economy, and it has
often been a matter of surprise to us that they should have
overlooked a subject of such deep interest as this — the results
produced on society by the abolition of Lent, that is to say, of an
institution, which, more than any other, keeps up in the public mind
a keen sentiment of moral right and wrong, inasmuch as it imposes on
a nation an annual expiation for sin. No shrewd penetration is needed
to see the difference between two nations, one of which observes,
each year, a forty days’
penance in reparation of the violations committed against the Law of
God, and another, whose very principles reject all such solemn
reparation.
And looking at the
subject from another point of view — is it not to be feared that
the excessive use of animal food tends to weaken, rather than to
strengthen, the constitution? We are convinced of it — the time
will come when a greater proportion of vegetable, and less of
animal, diet will be considered as an essential means for maintaining
the strength of the human frame.
Let then, the children
of the Church courageously observe the Lenten practices of penance.
Peace of conscience is essential to Christian life, and yet it is
promised to none but truly penitent souls. Lost innocence is to be
regained by the humble confession of the sin when it is accompanied
by the absolution of the priest, but let the faithful be on their
guard against the dangerous error which would persuade them that they
have nothing to do when once pardoned.
Let them remember the
solemn warning given them by the Holy Ghost in the sacred scriptures:
Be not without fear about sin forgiven! Our confidence of our having
been forgiven should be in proportion to the change or conversion of
our heart: the greater our present detestation of our past sins, and
the more earnest our desire to do penance for them for the rest of
our lives, the better founded is our confidence that they have been
pardoned. Man knows not, as the same holy Volume assures us, whether
he be worthy of love or hatred, but he that keeps up within him the
spirit of penance has every reason to hope that God loves him.
But the courageous
observance of the Church’s
precept of fasting and abstaining during Lent must be accompanied by
those two other eminently good works to which God so frequently urges
us in the Scripture: prayer and alms-deeds. Just as under the term
fasting the Church comprises all kinds of mortification, so under the
word prayer she includes all those exercises of piety by which the
soul holds intercourse with her God. More frequent attendance at the
services of the Church, assisting daily at Mass, spiritual reading,
meditation on eternal truths and the Passion, hearing sermons, and,
above all, the approaching the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy
Eucharist — these are the chief means by which the faithful should
offer to God the homage of prayer during this holy Season.
Alms-deeds comprise all
the works of mercy to our neighbour, and are unanimously recommended
by the Holy Doctors of the Church as being the necessary complement
of fasting and prayer during Lent.
God has made it a law
to which He has graciously bound Himself — hat charity shown
towards our fellow-creatures with the intention of pleasing our
Creator will be rewarded as though it were done to Himself. How
vividly this brings before us the reality and sacredness of the tie
which He would have to exist between all men! Such, indeed, is its
necessity that our Heavenly Father will not accept the love of any
heart that refuses to show mercy: but, on the other hand, He accepts,
as genuine and as done to Himself, the charity of every Christian,
who, by a work of mercy shown to a fellow-man, is really
acknowledging and honouring that sublime union which makes all men to
be one family, with God as its Father. Hence it is that alms-deeds
done with this intention are not merely acts of human kindness, but
are raised to the dignity of acts of religion which have God for
their direct object, and have the power of appeasing His Divine
Justice.
Let us remember the
counsel given by the Archangel Raphael to Tobias. He was on the point
of taking leave of this holy family and returning to heaven, and
these were his words: Prayer is good with fasting and alms, more
than to lay up treasures of gold, for alms delivers from death, and
the same is that which purges away sins, and makes to find mercy and
life everlasting. Equally strong is the recommendation given to
this virtue by the Book of Ecclesiasticus: Water quenches a
flaming fire, and alms resists sins. And again: Shut up alms in the
heart of the poor, and it will obtain help for you against all evil.
The Christian should keep these consoling promises ever before his
mind, but more especially during the season of Lent.
The rich man should
show the poor, whose whole year is a fast, that there is a time when
even he has his self-imposed privations. The faithful observance of
Lent naturally produces a saving. Let that saving be given to
Lazarus. Nothing, surely, could be more opposed to the spirit of this
holy Season than the keeping up a table, as richly and delicately
provided, as at other periods of the year, when God permits us to use
all the comforts compatible with the means He has given us. But how
thoroughly Christian is it, that during these days of penance and
charity, the life of the poor man should be made more comfortable in
proportion as that of the rich shares in the hardships and privations
of his suffering brethren throughout the world! Poor and rich would
then present themselves, with all the beauty of fraternal love upon
them, at the Divine Banquet of the Paschal Feast to which our risen
Jesus will invite us after these forty days are over.
There is one means more
by which we are to secure to ourselves the grand graces of Lent. It
is the spirit of retirement and separation from the world. Our
ordinary life, that is, such as it is during the rest of the year,
should all be made to pay tribute to the holy Season of penance,
otherwise the salutary impression produced on us by the holy ceremony
of Ash Wednesday will soon be effaced. The Christian ought,
therefore, to forbid himself during Lent all the vain amusements,
entertainments and parties of the world he lives in. As regards
theatres and balls, which are the world in the very height of its
power to do harm, no-one that calls himself a disciple of Christ
should ever be present at them unless necessity, or the position he
holds in society, oblige him to it: but if, from his own free choice,
he throw himself amidst such dangers during the present holy Season
of penance and recollection, he offers an insult to his character and
must needs cease to believe that he has sins to atone for, and a God
to propitiate. The world (we mean that part of it which is
Christian), has thrown oft all those external indications of mourning
and penance which we read of as being so religiously observed in the
Ages of Faith. Let that pass: but there is one thing which can never
change: God’s Justice,
and man’s obligation to
appease that Justice.
The world may rebel as
much as it will against the sentence, but the sentence is
irrevocable: Unless you do penance, you will perish. It is God’s
own word. Say, if you will, that few nowadays give ear to it, but for
that very reason many are lost. They, too, who hear this word, must
not forget the warnings given them by our Divine Saviour Himself in
the Gospel read to us on Sexagesima Sunday. He told us how some of
the seed is trodden down by the passers-by, or eaten by the fowls of
the air. How some falls on rocky soil, and gets parched, and how,
again, some is choked by thorns. Let us be wise, and spare no pains
to become that good ground, which not only receives the Divine Seed,
but brings forth a hundredfold for the Easter harvest which is at
hand.
An unavoidable feeling
will arise in the minds of some of our readers as they peruse these
pages in which we have endeavoured to embody the spirit of the
Church, such as it is expressed, not only in the Liturgy, but also in
the decrees of Councils and in the writings of the Holy Fathers. The
feeling we allude to is one of regret at not finding, during this
period of the Liturgical Year, the touching and exquisite poetry
which gave such a charm to the forty days of our Christmas solemnity.
First came Septuagesima, throwing its gloomy shade over those
enchanting visions of the Mystery of Bethlehem, and now we have got
into a desert land with thorns at every step, and no springs of water
to refresh us.
Let us not complain,
however. Holy Church knows our true wants and is intent on supplying
them. Neither must we be surprised at her insisting on a severer
preparation for Easter than for Christmas. At Christmas we were to
approach our Jesus as an infant. All she put us through then were the
Advent exercises, for the Mysteries of our Redemption were but
beginning.
And of those who went
to Jesus’ crib, there
were many who, like the poor shepherds of Bethlehem, might be called
simple, at least in this sense — that they did not sufficiently
realise, either the holiness of their Incarnate God, or the misery
and guilt of their own conscience. But now that this Son of the
Eternal God has entered the path of penance. Now that we are about to
see Him a victim to every humiliation, and suffering even a death
upon a Cross, the Church does not spare us. She rouses us from our
ignorance and our self-satisfaction. She bids us strike our breasts,
have compunction in our souls, and mortify our bodies, because we are
sinners. Our whole life ought to be one of penance. Fervent souls are
ever doing penance. Could anything be more just or necessary than
that we should do some penance during these days when our Jesus is
fasting in the desert and is to die on Calvary? There is a sentence
of this our Redeemer which He spoke to the daughters of Jerusalem on
the day of His Passion. Let us apply it to ourselves: If in the
green wood they do these things, what will be done in the dry? Oh
what a revelation is here, and yet, by the mercy of the Jesus who
speaks it, the dry wood may become the green, and so, not be burned.
The
Church hopes, nay her whole energy is labouring, that this may be.
Therefore she bids us to bear the yoke: she gives us a Lent. Let us
only courageously tread the way of penance, and the light will
gradually beam on us. If we are now far off from our God by the sins
that are upon us, this holy Season will be to us what the saints call
the Purgative Life, and will give us that purity which will enable us
to see our Lord in the glory of His victory over death. If, on the
contrary, we are already living the Illuminative Life, if, during the
three weeks of Septuagesima, we have bravely sounded the depth of our
miseries, our Lent will give us a clearer view of Him who is our
Light, and if we could acknowledge Him as our God when we saw him as
the babe of Bethlehem, our soul’s
eye will not fail to recognize him in the divine penitent of the
desert, or in the bleeding Victim of Calvary.
1In
most languages, the name given to this Fast expresses the number of
the days, Forty. But our word Lent signifies the Spring-Fast;
for Lenten-Tide, in the ancient English-Saxon language, was the
Season of Spring. [Tr.]
