In an age afflicted by ecclesial bar lowering, there is always a great danger that the inherent rhythm in the liturgical year will lose its meaning. This is perhaps most true when it comes to the season of Lent. Lent “officially” begins on Sunday, but Pope St. Gregory the Great added the four days between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in order to add four extra days so that the Faithful would fast for a total of forty days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday (Sundays and the two Solemnities of St. Joseph and the Annunciation being days to relax the fasting). In other words, unlike in our own times where we are required to fast two days during Lent, the great Pope wanted to raise the bar and make it harder! It is in this spirit that we should all resolve to make this our hardest Lent ever.
A Harder Lent?
Now admittedly, Gregory the Great was not simply trying to make it harder, even if that was one of the side effects. Instead, he was adjusting it so that Lent would retain its meaning. He wanted us, day by day, to join Our Lord in the desert during His great fast. Our Lord, true God and true Man, merited specific graces for each one of us individually each day that He fasted and fought in the desert. Lent is meant to be the time when we receive those graces, but our Lord asks us to meet Him in order for Him to give them to us.
It was no accident that Our Lord chose 40 days. Whether it is the forty days and nights of rain during the Flood, the Forty Years spent wandering in the desert, or the 40 days by which Ezekiel had to lay on his side, forty is the number of punishment and affliction. It is also the number of reparation with both Moses and Elijah joining Our Lord in reparatory fasting for 40 days. It turns out, although not surprisingly, that forty is also the magic number for developing a new habit. It is as if forty days of affliction and reparation is written into our fallen nature.
Because Christ first instituted Lent in the desert, it has all the qualities of a Christian mystery. And like all Christian mysteries it was instituted in order to bestow grace upon us. It is like a sacrament, or better yet, a sacramental. A sacred sign that is given to us that disposes us to receive grace. Living out a true Lenten spirit disposes us to receive those graces Our Lord wants to give us. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving take on a sacramental meaning, but especially fasting. The emphasis of Lent is on fasting for good reason—Our Lord sanctified and weaponized it in the desert. Lent is meant to be 40 days of hard fasting in reparation for our sins and growth in virtue.
Lent Began Well, Ends Well
Another key component of Lent is the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday. This is not, as many think, because it is only a symbol of our sinfulness and need for Penance, but because it is a Sacramental that, when received in faith, disposes us to the necessary graces to live a hard Lent. This disposal happens through the prayer of the Blessing of the Ashes. One of the prayers of blessing in the Novus Ordo Mass says:
O God, who desire not the death of sinners, but their conversion, mercifully hear our prayers and in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes which we intend to receive upon our heads, that we, who acknowledge we are but ashes and shall return to dust, may, through a steadfast observance of Lent, gain pardon for sins and newness of life after the likeness of your Risen Son. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
As I have spoken of previously, the power of Sacramentals come through their actual blessing and so we must, in order to properly take advantage of them, pay attention to what they have been empowered to do. The ashes in particular then are true Sacramentals that, through the power of the Church, dispose us to receive all the graces necessary to have a “steadfast observance of Lent” and “gain the pardon of sins.” By receiving the ashes, we are each individually guaranteed to receive the prayers of the Mystical Body that we can live a hard Lent.
As an aside, Ashes are a prime example of why the blessings from the Tridentine Rite are far superior to those of the Novus Ordo. As a side-by-side comparison, take a look at the prayers. The former clearly gives a more abundant blessing upon the ashes, rendering them far more powerful to aid us during Lent. This is not a shot across the post-Vatican II bow, but a comment that, objectively speaking, the Church was far more generous in bestowing blessings upon the Faithful in the pre-Vatican II era.
Either way, armed by Our Lord in the desert and further disposed by the Ashes, we have everything we need to live a hard Lent. What if each one of us, rather than measuring out “what we will give up”, went “old school” and fasted for these 40 days. I have found that Dr. Jay Richard’s method detailed in his book is particularly effective for growing in the virtue of fasting and implementing as a daily practice in Lent. Recalling that one of the reasons why the Church had so many fast days previously was so that we could develop the virtue of fasting, we may have to start at a level that is proportional to our current level of virtue. But by the end of Lent we should all have developed the virtue and that only comes about through making it hard.
The “Great Bar Lowering” then must be met by a voluntary raising of our own bars. Genuine contrition of soul can never be achieved without mortification of the body. We are both body and soul and any attempt to separate the two in practice leads to great harm to our persons. A hard Lent, fasting especially, will create in us a disposition of sorrow for our sins and a generosity of spirit in making reparation to Our Lord. It is as if the diminishing of our physical energy brings about a supernatural energy. Make Lent Hard Again!