Most people are unaware of or have forgotten what Lent is. Yet the Catechism of Pope Saint Pius X was very clear, calling it “a season of fasting and penance instituted by the Church according to apostolic tradition”. In the following paragraph, Saint Pius X explained its ends:
“To make known to us the obligation we have to do penance all through our lives; to imitate in some way the rigorous fast of forty days that Jesus Christ did in the desert; to prepare ourselves by means of penance for a holy celebration of Easter.” (No 36)
But often for good Catholics who do not forget about it, Lent is reduced to a few ascetic practices: fasting, mortifications, almsgiving, certainly praiseworthy and always recommended by the Church, but not sufficient to transmit to us the spirit of Lent, which is first of all that of detaching ourselves more deeply from sin and embracing the will of God with greater generosity.
Benedict XVI, in his Message for Lent 2009, recalls that in the first pages of Sacred Scripture the Lord commands man to abstain from consuming the forbidden fruit: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:16–17) This injunction that God gave to Adam is the first precept of abstinence from food that man receives. Commenting on the divine injunction, Saint Basil writes that “the ‘you shall not eat’ is, therefore, the law of fasting and abstinence." (1) So, Benedict XVI goes on to observe, if Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command “not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” “the believer, through fasting intends to submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy." (2)
The spirit of penance is manifested, before any other practice, in the effort to conform oneself to the will of God at every moment, including the painful and humiliating ones of our life. On 26 March 1950, on the occasion of Lent of the Great Holy Year, Pius XII addressed the faithful in this way:
“To know how to endure life! This is the first penance of every Christian, the first condition and the first means of holiness and sanctification. With that docile resignation which is proper to one who believes in a just and good God and in the teacher and guide of hearts Jesus Christ, embrace with courage the often hard daily cross. Carried with Jesus, its burden becomes light.”
The effort to unite our will with the will of God comes before every ascetic practice. For this reason Jesus highlights the profound reason for fasting, condemning the attitude of the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the ritual prescriptions imposed by the law, whereas their hearts were far from God. True fasting, the divine Teacher explains, is rather doing the will of the heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you.” (Mt 6:18) He himself gives the example by replying to Satan, at the end of the forty days spent in the desert, that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Mt 4:4) “The true fast,” Benedict XVI concludes, “is thus directed to eating the ‘true food’, which is to do the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4:34).”
One who loves the will of the Father detests sin, which is the violation of divine law. And so, in this Lenten season of the 2025 Jubilee, how can we not make our own the words that Pius XII addressed to the faithful of the whole world to prepare them for Lent in the Jubilee of 1950:
“Measure, if your eye and spirit can bear to do so, with the humility of one who perhaps must acknowledge himself in part responsible for them, the number, the gravity, the frequency of sins in the world. Man’s own work, sin infects the earth and like a foul stain defaces the work of God. Think of the countless private and public sins, hidden and manifest; of the sins against God and his Church; against oneself, in soul and body; against one’s neighbour, particularly against the humblest and most defenceless creatures; finally, of the sins against the family and human society. Some of them are so unheard of and heinous that new words have been needed to refer to them. Weigh their gravity: of those committed through mere carelessness and those knowingly premeditated and coldly perpetrated; of those that ruin just one life or that instead multiply in chains of iniquity until they turn into wickedness lasting centuries or crimes against whole nations. Compare, in the penetrating light of faith, this immense accumulation of baseness and vileness with the dazzling holiness of God, with the nobility of the end for which man was created, with the Christian ideals for which the Redeemer suffered pain and death, and then say whether the divine justice can still tolerate such deformation of his image and plans, such abuse of his gifts, such contempt for his will, and above all such mockery of the innocent blood of his dear Son.
“Vicar of that Jesus who shed his blood even to the last drop to reconcile men with the heavenly Father, visible Head of that Church which is his mystical Body for the salvation and sanctification of souls, We exhort you to sentiments and works of penance, so that you and all Our sons and daughters scattered throughout the world may take the first step toward the effective moral rehabilitation of humanity. With all the ardour of Our paternal heart We ask of you sincere repentance for past sins, full detestation of sin, and firm purpose of amendment; We implore you to secure divine pardon through the sacrament of confession and the divine Redeemer’s testament of love; finally, we entreat you to lighten the debt of the temporal punishments due to your sins with the multiform works of satisfaction: prayers, almsgiving, fasting, mortifications, for which the approaching Holy Year offers ready opportunity and invitation.”
Notes
1.Sermo de jejunio: PG 31, 163, 98.
2. Pope Benedict XVI, Message of 11 December 2008.
