Lent in Our Common Home

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The word “Lent” comes from an Old English word for spring, from which we also get the word “length,” which refers to the lengthening of daylight during this season. Originally created for the preparation of those converting to Christianity, the season later became associated with Jesus’ 40 days in the desert. Yet, as conversions decreased and infant baptism became more the norm, Lent took on a penitential and preparatory quality for all Christians on their way to Easter. Just as the earth was being renewed by the coming of spring, so Christians were invited to renew themselves—to slough off the old and put on the grace promised in the Resurrection. The Church called all to increased fasting, to greater almsgiving, and to deeper prayer, all so that we might come to the new life promised in the resurrection.

Today, though we continue to cultivate these three spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving during the season of Lent, it is sometimes difficult to see their connection to the cycle of the year and the holiness of the season. Cooled by air conditioning and kept warm by central heating, able to stay up late with electric lights or have our favorite fruits at any time of year thanks to global trade, we can easily become disconnected from the rebirth we see in spring and the symbolism that leads us towards Easter. In such a context, fasting is not a way to share in the fallowness of the earth, but can become a kind of “religious dieting;” prayer can become not a movement from the darkness of winter to the light of spring, but something akin to a “new year’s resolution” that often ends up like most of those resolutions do. Even almsgiving, which aims to remind us that limited resources need to be shared, can become just another good deed, satisfied by a few coins in the Rice Bowl. None of these practices is bad, but separate from our connection to the earth, they can be more like cultural practices we do than invitations to grace.

However, this year at St. Ignatius, working with the Laudato Si’ Circle, I would like to invite us all to reconnect these practices to their original intent, and perhaps reconnect ourselves both to our place as creatures in communion with Creation and disciples in this season of life, death, and resurrection. Of course, I am not discouraging anyone from personal acts of penance or almsgiving or prayer. However, I would invite us all to begin to think how we can integrate these practices into our responsibility for the Earth—our Common Home—and its most vulnerable inhabitants, as Pope Francis has called us to do. 

For example, when it comes to fasting, perhaps instead of (or in addition to?) giving up coffee or chocolate, we might, as individuals, fast from fossil fuels—taking the bus or walking, and leaving our cars at home. Perhaps, as a family or household, we might eat less meat and more grain-based meals, keep the thermometer lower and don a sweater, or use less plastic packaging. Perhaps, as a parish or community, we might give up some of our time to advocate for indigenous peoples, displaced by global warming or forced to migrate from increased desertification. 

When it comes to almsgiving, we might individually support sustainable produce and take the money we save by walking or taking the bus to help those caught in food deserts around our city. Or as a family, perhaps we might consider changing our old, less-efficient water-heaters or appliances for those that use less of the Earth’s resources. And as a parish community, we might continue to do, with more intent, what we have already begun to do: reusing resources in our building projects, gathering gently used clothing and shoes and recycling them for our neighbors. In these and other ways, we might take what we save from our fasting, and make it a gift for the poor, in the spirit of 6th century saint Caesarius of Arles: “Let us fast in such a way that we lavish our lunches up on the poor, so that we may not store up in our purses what we intended to hear, but rather in the stomachs of the poor. This is the heart of Lent and the call of Laudato Si’.

Finally, when it comes to prayer, let us each ask for the grace to see our world with the eyes of Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem and rejoiced in the house of Mary and Martha; with Jesus, who directed that the remains from the feeding of the 5000 were gathered into baskets, so that nothing would be wasted and all could have food for their journey. As Pope Francis has said, “You pray for the poor, and then you feed them. That is how prayer works.” So, in this season of Lent, let our prayer—both individual, in our homes, and in our communities—be made with both our hearts and our hands. Let us love the Earth and her most vulnerable peoples. As people of prayer, let us advocate for the values we seek in prayer. Let us stand with the seasons of the Earth at a time when air and water, soil and living things—and even the seasons themselves—are threatened. Let us open our eyes to the effects of these threats, which bring death in the Middle East and South Sudan, in Ukraine and Haiti, at the Rio Grande and in forests just to our north.

We have begun our journey toward resurrection, at the side of Jesus Christ, so let our fasting and alms and prayer make us disciples in our time and in the age to come.

Consider traditional approaches as well as these further suggestions for fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, inspired by Laudato Si’. Do what you are able, but let us all do something, that our prayer might guide us and our fasting be a feast for our poor but blessed world.

Oremus pro invicem.

Fr. Greg