I've been hitting the books big time preparing for the RCIA session I'm teaching on Monday: What is Lent?

The one thing I really appreciated which I don't see in your insert, is that along with conversion and repentence, Lent is also a time of purification and enlightenment.

Typically, we only think of these last 2 as being for the catechumens -- they're the ones who really need to prepare for Easter -- but I kind of like the *idea* or maybe it's the *words*. Spending 40 days being purified and enlightened somehow sounds more positive than converting and repenting -- although you certainly can't be the one without doing the other!
Meg | Homepage | 01.30.08 - 12:36 pm | #

Our priest actually brought that up in our scripture study last night. He talked about the reading from Zephaniah (sp?) for next Sunday's mass and read from the chapter beforehand showing what most of the people were really like. We then discussed how very like the people of Nineveh that was and how they had put on sackcloth and ashes in repentance and for purification to be acceptable to God. He told us that the Orthodox church calls the first three days of Lent something like "the days of Nineveh" (can't remember exactly) and that those who can do complete fasting except from water for those three days. It put an entirely new spin on the whole thing for me.
Julie D. | Homepage | 01.30.08 - 12:58 pm | #

please read our Popes letter on Lent.It is excellent.
joandrexel | 01.30.08 - 6:49 pm | #

Every tradition realizes that we can't, we SHOULDN'T be "up" all the time. There can be no times of expansiveness without times of contraction.

We Jews have the month of Av, the Christians have Lent, and the Moslems have Ramadan. The details are different, but the basic ideas, and even the practices, are much the same. It's not masochism, it's just the tide going out so it can come in again. G-d is always abundant, but we are inconstant receptors.
Hantchu | 01.30.08 - 11:45 pm | #