Towards a More Meaningful Lent

Towards a More Meaningful Lent

Subhash Anand

43subhash@gmail.com

           

            Soon we will begin the holy season of Lent. In all spheres of our life―secular and religious, real growth is not possible without evaluation. This, in turn, is not possible without taking time out and reflecting on what we are doing.  During Lent we observe some special practices. What exactly is the goal of our Lenten observances? Is what we have been traditionally doing during Lent really effective? Are they truly helping us to attain the goal we have placed before ourselves? During Lent Many make sure they do not miss the Sunday Mass, and some even attend Mass on weekdays. Many abstain from non-vegetarian food, alcohol and tobacco during Lent. They do so in a spirit of penance. Some others, especially religious trained in earlier formation houses, fast every Friday and pray with hands stretched out. Some even scourge themselves. Many Catholics participate in the Way of the Cross and recite the family rosary more regularly.

            Lent calls us to metanoia. This word is made up of the prefix meta, which has many meaning. At times it suggests change, ‘metamorphosis’ (= transformation, transmutation. The word nous means mind. Hence, metanoia means a different way of looking at life. This is real conversion. Most of us plan our life, and sometimes even want to plan the life of others. Conversion means looking at our life and the life of others the way God looks at it. Then the desire to know and do God’s will become our main concern not merely during Lent, but all through our life. This is exactly what we are asking for when we say the Lord’s Prayer: “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.” We need to be more attentive to what we say in our prayers. God reveals his will to us through Jesus. Jesus gives us only one command: “Love one another as I have loved you.” That is the essence of Christian life. All else is totally secondary. Hence all our Lenten observances―Eucharist, devotions, penance―must make us more sensitive and concerned for others, especially the poor. In fact this is exactly what the prophets, the conscience-keepers of Israel, tell us.

            Our Sunday observance has its roots in the Old Testament Sabbath. The full significance of the Sabbath is revealed when we read two important texts concerning it.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (Ex 20. 8-11).

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day (Deut 5.12-15).

There are two important features that need to be noted.

            1) Both the texts do not make any reference to worship or cult. There is no obligation to attend some liturgical service. The struggle to bring about a just society is the true worship of God. 2) Two reasons are given why the Sabbath needs to be observed. After six days of work God rested. Hence we all are called to rest.           The Israelites were slaves in Egypt and Yahweh liberated them from bonded labour. It is this liberating act of God that explains why both the texts spell out fully the obligation to rest: not only the Israelites who were working, but also their sons, daughters, men-servants, maids, cattle and even the sojourner living with them must be given rest. In Egypt the Israelites worked all the days of the week, and their masters rested whenever they wanted. The Israelites may be tempted to imitate their former masters. If they do so they will not be Yahweh’s people. The text explicitly mentions women: daughters and maids. A patriarchal society tends to treat women as secondary citizens. The Sabbath is the celebration of a society where all are equal, all are respected. The Sabbath is a symbol of justice. The celebration of the Sabbath is just not one part of our struggle to bring about a truly free society. It sums up what that society ought to be: without justice all other virtues lose their significance, and our freedom becomes monstrous. The more we get institutionalized, the more we cultify the prophetic vision of Jesus: cult tends to displace justice.

The centrality of justice for the observance of Sabbath becomes clear also from the teaching of the prophets. Even a sojourner or a eunuch, who keeps the Sabbath, will be taken by Yahweh into His holy temple on His holy mountain (Is 56.2-7). On the other hand, if the Israelites profane the Sabbath, then Jerusalem will be destroyed (Jer 17.19-27). When there is injustice, then the Sabbath and all the cultic activities of Israel become a ‘burden’ for God, which He cannot endure, which He hates. The incense in the temple begins to stink, and God turns a deaf year to the prayer of His people (Is 1.12-15; Amos 5.21-23). He admonishes them:  “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Is 1.16-17).

No prophet brings out the disastrous consequences of neglecting the Sabbath and the inseparable call to justice as does Amos. God threatens those who violate His law:

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat?”

I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

Behold, the days are coming when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it. (8.4-6, 10-12)

When Israel neglects the Sabbath and the concomitant obligation of justice, then its liturgy becomes totally futile, nay a source of pain and suffering. Then her people will not get to hear the Word of the Lord, however much they may want it. All the sermons of bishops and priests will be empty. The people will continue to get stones instead of bread (Mt 9.7). If Israel cannot hear the Word of God, then it can by no means preach it. It has no reason to exist. This is also true of the New Israel.

            Justice is a central concern of the Old Testament, especially with the prophets since they were sent to call Israel to repentance. We have seen how through Isaiah and Amos Yahweh rejects the fasting and cultic practices of Israel due to their infidelity. He demands that they practice justice instead (Is 1.17; Amos 5.24). Yahweh’s insistence on justice is most visible in the first song of the Servant of Yahweh. He has a mission to all nations. Yahweh tells us three times that His Servant will bring justice to all (42.1, 3, 4). The God of the Old Testament has a preferential love for the poor and the oppressed. Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, sums up his life and mission in the manifesto he presented in the synagogue of his village (Lk 4.18-19):

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

The quotation in Lk 4.18-19 is taken from Is 61.1-2, except the words in bold, which are from 58.6. Why did Luke complicate his account of an event which otherwise seems to be so simple?

            In Ch 58, Yahweh pronounces judgement on people who oppress others and still try to give the impression of being pious:

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,

  and oppress all your workers...

Is not this the fast that I choose?

 to loose the bonds of wickedness,

 to undo the thongs of the yoke,

 to let the oppressed go free,

 and to break every yoke?” (vv 3b, 6).

The prophet explicitly mentions those who oppress their workers. In bringing the two texts together, Luke wants to make it clear that the people whom Jesus has come to set free are not merely sinners (spiritual oppression) but also the victims of different forms of injustice (social oppression). Had he not done this, he would not have been proclaiming the Kingdom of His Father. Had he not done this, he would not have been crucified, and then there would be no Church, and the question of celebrating a jubilee or the Eucharist would not arise at all.

            Many of us employ other people either in our institutions or homes. Do we deal with them with respect? Are we sensitive to their dignity as children the one Father? Do we pay them an equitable salary? Do we after some time of service make them permanent? Even our daily paid workers deserve the day of rest for which God created the Sabbath. It should be holiday with pay. Then they and we will celebrate the Lord’s day as a holy day―not by going to the Church, but by reaching out to our neighbour. Without justice there is no love neighbour. Without love of neighbour our participation in the Eucharist and other pious exercises and all our penance do not serve any purpose.

            Lent is not a season, but an attitude that ought to guide us all through the year: concern for our neighbour is the is highest worship, and the self-denial that is called for in loving others is the greatest penance. As a result of consumerism, all of us―bishops, priests, religious and laity―are spending a lot money on  costly celebrations, glamorous buildings, and non-productive meetings―be they academic or administrative. In a way we cannot blame the laity. They are following their supposedly religious leaders. In a country, where so many do not get the bare minimum even after putting in hard work, this waste is unacceptable. Some quote Jesus: “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me” (Jn 12.7-8). I wish these people too were being prepared for their burial. When we spend money on ourselves without real need, we are insulting the poor whom God has chosen (James 2.5-6).

            Jesus also tells us that our liturgy will not be acceptable if we are not reconciled with our sisters and brothers: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” 5.23-24). This is true of all our prayers, pious practices and corporal penance will not be acceptable to his Abba if we do not forgive sisters and brothers. “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mk 11.25). We remind ourselves of this insistence of Jesus every time we pray as he taught us: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us” (Mt 6.12). Sometimes it is not easy to forgive. We may harbour resentment and ill will for days, weeks, and months. When we forgive others we die to ourselves, and we share in the saving death of Jesus. Lent is an invitation to be reconciled first with our neighbour, and then will our God.

            The text in Lk 4.19 has the words “and recovering of sight to the blind.” A change of heart comes through enlightenment. This explains why in our land there is so much insistence on darshana: the ability to see. It was because he was enlightened that Siddhartha became Buddha―the enlightened one. Much before he joined Ignatius Loyola and his band, Francis Borgia was in touch with him. On one occasion he wrote to his spiritual guide, seeking his permission to undertake fasting. Ignatius wrote back: “Do not fast. Instead study theology.” That was a brilliant piece of advice, given by the first General of the Society of Jesus to the future General, by one saint to another. The Jesuits have been in the forefront of the growth of the Church since their foundation. If they were suppressed, it was because like Jesus, to whose company they belong, they took up the cause of the poor and antagonize the rich and the powerful. Without theology we end up by being fundamentalists. I regret to say many adult Catholics and even religious women―in spite of all their formation―have not gone beyond the catechism they learnt for their First Communion.

            I have spent thirty-five on the staff of two major seminaries. I have served as visiting faculty in other major seminaries and scholasticates. I have been a resource person for a gathering of bishops and priest-representatives of the Agra ecclesiastical province (1993), of the Hindi-speaking dioceses (1980), and for a CBCI meeting (1988). I have preached retreats to over a hundred groups of priests; conducted theology seminars and formation programmes for priests serving in ‘missions’ and parishes, seminary staff and young priests; and assisted major seminary staff in evaluating their performance. Thus I have met members of the clergy across the country. What is very disturbing is that many priests and bishops whose knowledge of theology is inadequate for meaningful ministry today. What is still worse, they are not prepared to admit that intellectually they need updating. Let me give you one example.

            At the 1988 CBCI meeting, I was so put off by the discussion of the bishops. Many had not really come prepared, and most were not competent to handle the issues they were discussing. I was feeling horribly humiliated: these are our leaders! One auxiliary bishop―a late vocation, and who had been the rector of major city in a very modernised part of India―had the courage to say: “Bishops, let us be more serious, otherwise people will laugh at us.” After the meeting that I told Archbishop Casimir, S.J.: “The next time you have a CBCI meeting, please organize a seminar for the bishops on the topic you plan to discuss at the meeting.” He replied: “Subhash, the bishops who do not need that seminar will come, but the bishops who really need it, will not turn up.” If what another Jesuit, Cardinal Carlo Martini said: “the Church is 200 years behind time,” is true―and I am convinced it is―then it is primarily due to bishops and priests who do not know enough of theology. Without theology the Church just cannot move ahead. Doing some serious reading will be a real Lenten observance for all of us, but very especially for bishops and priests. It will broaden our horizon, and contribute towards our conversion, our metanoia.