Rev. Peter EspeutBECAUSE THE first day in the ancient Christian Season of Lent (Ash Wednesday) is a public holiday in Jamaica you would think that Lent was the subject of special observance here; sadly, it is not! In strongly Catholic Trinidad where observance of Lent is widespread, Ash Wednesday is not a public holiday. After jumping up in Carnival the week before sometimes all night the revelry stops dead on the stroke of midnight, and part of the tradition is that everyone turns out to work ON TIME Ash Wednesday morning, and then the churches are packed in the evening.
I have often suggested in this column that Jamaica should discontinue Ash Wednesday as a public holiday since the opportunity for the special observance of the beginning of Lent is not being taken up, since it was never necessary to begin Lent with a day-off from work.
FASTING
For Christians of the older tradition, Lent is a time when we look to root out our imperfections. Of course we should be doing this all year round, but our church knows that sometimes the sinner in all of us needs prodding, and ever since the Fifth Christian Century, 40 days have been set aside for this observation as a preparation for the most holy Christian Season of Easter.
Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights during which he overcame Satan, and for us older Christians Lent is a time when we do battle with the forces of evil in our lives. The three temptations of Jesus in the desert to pleasure, money and power summarise the three major arenas in which this internal struggle takes place in our lives too. Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread to appease the appetites of His body; He was promised the wealth of the kingdoms of the world, a temptation to luxury and possession of worldly goods; He was enticed to show off His power, to boast, by jumping off the highest point of the temple so that angels would fly to prevent him
from hurting himself. Which of us is free from these selfish
tendencies?
During Lent we are encouraged to fast, pray and give alms, and in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us guidelines for these important practices: they should be sincere and from the heart, and should be private to avoid spiritual pride. We must close our doors and pray in secret, not recite our prayers in public; when we fast we should wash our faces and smile, not put on sackcloth and wear long faces so people will know we are fasting; and when we give alms, it must be in secret.
If we are successful at these three tasks, we will have begun to conquer the three great temptations: fasting addresses the temptation to food and pleasure; almsgiving giving away money is the opposite of accumulating wealth; and prayer, humbling ourselves before God, is the antithesis of boasting and power-seeking as if we can do everything on our own. Fasting, prayer and almsgiving remain the absolutely central and crucial Christian actions which launch us toward perfection. Jesus did not say "If you pray ...", or "If you fast ..." or "If you give alms ..."; He said "When you pray ...", and "When you fast ..." and "When you give alms ...". Whatever else we do, these will remain.
In my youth, Lent was a time of self-denial, a time to "give up" something you like as a personal sacrifice. Often it was some favourite food item like chocolate or sweets; often it was going to the cinema or to parties. The idea was to "mortify the flesh", to reassert control of our bodies by our wills and our spiritual sensibilities. Without knowing it, sometimes our stomachs or our libidos rule us, and it is cathartic to put things back in balance.
ADDITIONAL DIMENSION
Nowadays there is an additional dimension to Lent: The Church calls each of her members to redouble our practice of the good deeds Jesus outlines in the Parable of the Last Judgement. Because our hungry, homeless and lonely neighbours are Jesus, "When you do this even to the least of my brothers and sisters you do it to Me". This is really an expansion of the challenge to almsgiving, as is work for justice and human development. For many of us, care for the Haitian refugees has been an important Lenten duty.
Lent is also a time for forgiveness, a time to right previous wrongs, to "get right with God" but also to get right with our neighbours. I hope you will agree with me that Jamaica needs to take the season of Lent seriously. Politics, racism and yes religion and denomination - have divided Jamaican from Jamaican, sometimes leading to hard words and even bloodshed. Never mind the unchurched; if more good Christian people and there are many in positions of considerable influence would put their lives in order, Jamaica would be a much better place.
The Rev. Peter Espeut is a rural development sociologist and an ordained Deacon of the Roman Catholic Church.
