LENT 1st March 2009

LENT 1st March 2009

Community Chapter Sermon Fr. Hugh

The liturgy throughout Lent emphasises that this is a special time of grace when God's self-giving is especially operative. “Behold now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation." St. Benedict in his chapter on Lent also emphasises this point when he calls Lent 'a holy season'. At first sight his words about tent seem a little grim -'a monk’s life should always have a Lenten character' - suggestive of purple vestments in the liturgy and scant fare in the refectory. Yet if we see St. Benedict's chapter in the light of St. Leo's Lenten sermon from which it is taken we get a different slant on it.

St. Leo, who died about twenty years before Benedict was born, was Pope during an unusually difficult period. It was a time of serious Christological problems concerned with establishing both the divinity and the sacred humanity of Christ. The Huns and the Vandals were oppressing Rome and the old order of things seemed to be vanishing. Yet Leo was full of joy and deeply aware of the privilege of being a Christian. 'O Christian recognise your dignity', he said. He has left us twelve sermons on Lent and nearly everyone of them starts off by directing our attention to Easter. Like St. Benedict, Leo sees Lent as a time of preparation for Easter which is the principal feast of the Church’s Year. Every thing builds up to it and flows from it.

His fourth sermon on Lent from which Benedict takes his thought, acts as a sort of enlarged photo of the chapter on this subject in the Holy Rule. It shows us what St. Benedict meant by 'a holy season' and 'a Lenten character'. Leo sees Lent as a time of opportunity. 'Behold now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation'. 'For though there is no season, ' he says, 'that is not filled with the divine gifts and though at each moment we have through his grace access to the Divine mercy, Yet now is the time in which the souls of all people should be stirred to greater fervour .... so that purified in body and soul we may celebrate the supreme mystery of the Passion of Our Lord.'

It is because Lent is the prelude to Easter that it is a special time, a time of opportunity. Throughout Christendom it is a time of special effort, or perhaps rather a time of greater awareness of God's desire to share his life with us and of His infinite generosity. Frequently in the Lenten liturgy we are urged to listen. This is not just, an intellectual exercise but to be receptive of new values. 'To incline the ear of the heart' as St. Benedict says. It will probably take the form of a deeper awareness of truths we have long known.

Whatever happens in the Mystical Body of Christ affects all its members for better or for worse. As the whole Church strives for greater holiness during this season it is bound to have repercussions throughout the Mystical Body which is interrelated. In this diocese, as elsewhere prospective converts are being prepared during Lent for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter. No longer does this take place in private in the presence of two witnesses but in public in the liturgical setting of the Parish Paschal Vigil.

Station Masses are held during this time in each of the deaneries of the diocese presided' over by the Archbishop, in the same way as they are held in various Roman Churches. The purpose of these special masses is to emphasise and to strengthen the unity of the diocese around its bishop.

All this makes' of Lent a special time when God's grace is especially operative. This clearly requires a response. St. Leo says that: "we should be such in the presence of God at all times as we are obliged to be for the Paschal Feast. But since few can live up to this, a period of forty days has been given to us to restore the purity of our souls.

Thus a Lenten character is a Paschal character with those qualities which would be fitting for the Easter celebration. The traditional Lenten austerities exist to promote this. It is to do with developing the life of the risen Christ which was given to us at baptism and which will reach its full development after death.

“Behold now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. A time of joint effort, a time of God’s special bounty.”

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