From Where I Sit                        Judith Lynch (writing from Melbourne)                            Judith's website

February 21, 2012                      The Liturgical Season of Lent                Judith's previous articles

The liturgical season of Lent is upon us and because I’m known as a ‘practicing’ Catholic, I’m going to whisper this:
“I don’t like Lent”.  After all, what kind of Catholic am I to question our Lenten traditions and practices?  

It’s not the idea of Lent that so bothers me, but the way it is presented, year after year, with the same buzz words: 
prayer, fasting and alms-giving. So we are invited to join a Lenten Gospel discussion group, eat fish on Friday (even the supermarkets are in on this one), put your spare cash in the Project Compassion box and ‘give up” chocolates or  whatever until Easter. If you are really serious you might attend the Stations of the Cross on a Friday night in your parish church – and there’s Lent done!  

Alright, that’s a little unfair and exaggerated, but if current Lenten practices give me trouble, then I wonder what exactly they mean to my adult, non- Mass attending, children?  I suspect they are stuck at the ‘give up for Lent’ stage. That’s partly my doing because when I had a chance I didn’t encourage them to use the time of Lent to deepen their appreciation of their Christian, Catholic faith. After all, that’s where the season of Lent had its beginnings.  

In the early centuries after Jesus death and resurrection, becoming a Christian was a big deal. It was an adult decision and meant renouncing lots of practices and traditions that were not in keeping with “Love your neighbour” and “Take up your cross”. There was a lead up time of at least three year, then a focused six weeks before a complete and shivery immersion in water after which they were invited to join the rest of the baptized Christians around the altar for the full Eucharist. And all this happened as the hard European winter gave way to a green and perfumed spring.  Death and resurrection was happening all around.

The majority of Christians in Australia were baptized or christened as babies. Religion classes or Sunday school may have introduced them to the Jesus of the Gospels and religious practices and symbols , but by and large religious development has generally lagged way behind every other kind of growth. There is a disconnect between the way we live our lives today and religious language.  

I want a Church that recognises the many prayer, fasting and almsgiving elements that are already operative in the lives of my adult children. They pray, mostly when need catches them around the throat, but they pray. They give often and generously to many appeals all the year round. They balance their budget so that bills can be paid and there is a certain amount left for family treats. To do this they ‘give up’ personal wishes of their own.  

Changing nappies isn’t exactly fun and as a ‘penance’ is probably up there with hair shirts. So is supervising homework  in between sorting TV squabbles and getting the dinner, then finishing the day by reading   “John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat’ for what seems the hundredth time … Do it all with love and patience. Who needs any other penance? It’s rare to find a Church community that is able to value and celebrate that.  

I yearn to see parishes recognise the enormous part loss plays in most people’s lives and create relevant ways to walk with them in their grief, modelling the death-resurrection story that God unfolded for us in the life of Jesus.  

If the institutional Church would stop telling us how materialistic we all are and listen to our lives, then maybe the majority who generally flick their baptismal promises as irrelevant, might think again and in the process touch into the God who loves them just the way they are.