Lent--- A Promise of New Life

By: Father Terry Hamilton

(from Tour Talk)

 How do you like your lent to be served?  Do you prefer a wintry Lent that allows you to be in a hibernating mode and whose gray clouds help you enter into a penitential mood?  Or would you choose a Lent that runs parallel to the rebirth of spring and begins to lift our spirits from the winter doldrums?

This year because of the early date of Easter, the first part of Lent’s forty days has been within winter’s hold.  But I imagine most of us are hoping that the second half of Lent will be a time of transition from ice and snow to fields and trees that are starting to green up.

Having at least part of Lent in the early days of springtime sets the tone for meaning of this holy season.

In years past, especially before the Second Vatican Council, we may have not thought of Lent as being a joyful season.  For many people it was a grim season and a time to get through as quickly as possible.  However, today many of the liturgical prayers proclaim a much more positive note.  One of the Lenten Prefaces says it this way:

“Each year you give us this

joyful season when we prepare to

celebrate the paschal mystery

with mind and heart renewed.

You give us a spirit of loving

reverence for you, our God, and

of willing service to our neighbor.”

Spring with its promise of new life does lift our hearts, but it is also a season of hard work.  Yards and fields need to be cleaned of the residue of autumn and winter so the spring planting can take place.  So too, Lent will truly be a springtime that leads to Easter, if we take on the work of authentic conversion and commit ourselves to prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

There is genuine joy in rediscovering, or perhaps realizing for the first time, that we have been saved and redeemed by the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.