pamkirst2014 posted: " "Did you know," asks Susan, "that in Catholic churches no one says 'alleluia' during Lent?" Scrrrrreeeee-aawwwwkkkk. The rusty wheels of my brain lurch past-ward, exploring, heading back to a scary season when church statues were draped in purple, the" Catching My Drift
"Did you know," asks Susan, "that in Catholic churches no one says 'alleluia' during Lent?"
Scrrrrreeeee-aawwwwkkkk. The rusty wheels of my brain lurch past-ward, exploring, heading back to a scary season when church statues were draped in purple, the color of mourning. (The shadows those shrouds made in flickering candlelight were, for some, reason, absolutely terrifying.)
The altar was barren of color and texture: no lace, no flowers, no brightness. Services were solemn. We didn't say the Gloria.
And yes, it was true, now I cast my mind back over it: no alleluias, either, during Lent.
***************************
I find an article on-line that explains this, because at my current craggy vantage point, it doesn't quite make perfect sense: why shouldn't we always celebrate the fact of redemption?
In "Why Don't Roman Catholics Sing the Gloria or Alleluia During Lent," Nancy Hackel writes that the alleluia was "...understood to be the main term of praise used by the choirs of angels, as they worship around the throne of God in heaven…"
And during Lent, Hackel continues, Catholics are not supposed to dwell on the fact that they are redeemed, that heaven is an ultimate possibility. Instead, Lent is a solemn time of acknowledging weakness, failings, SIN. It's a time of repentance and purification, so that, on Easter Sunday, people can raise their voices in tune, again, with the heavenly host,---never, probably, WORTHY,--but always trying to be.
The article uses the term 'exile,' in that Lent is a time of separation from the saved and a journey toward that state.
I accepted this thinking as a child; I had my own definition of Lent. It was this:
Lent is a painful time of sacrifice.
*****************************
In the house where I grew up, we had pretty strict interpretations of Lenten rules. On Fridays, we fasted, meaning we did not eat any kind of meat. (An older brother, a cynic at age ten, theorized that meatless Fridays were instituted to drum up business for the Apostles, who were, mostly, fisherfolk.)
Of course, meatlessness was true of EVERY Friday, back in Catholic Churchdom in the early 1960's. At home and at the Catholic school, this rule was reiterated forcefully: eating meat on a Friday was a sin.
And no one got into Heaven with sin on their soul. The nuns drilled us in this. Say an Act of Contrition nightly before bed, they commanded; then just in case you die during the night, you'll still be accepted at the gates of Heaven. And go to Confession, purge those sins, at least once a week.
I got stuck on the fact that I could die during the night, suddenly and without apparent cause or warning. Some dark quiet nights, I was afraid to close my eyes.
And one awful Friday, I played at a friend's house and had dinner there. Dinner was Campbell's soup in huge cans, enough to feed eight hungry people.
And it was vegetable BEEF.
I didn't know what to do. My mother had taught me, forcibly, that, when a guest at someone's meal, I was to take what's on offer thankfully. And I was to EAT it.
But---beef on Friday! Flames were licking at the bottoms of my Red Ball Jets knockoffs.
I weighed the alternatives and knew that my mother finding out I'd refused food at a friend's house was the more dangerous option. I ate the soup and went home in despair.
That night, I tried to stay awake all night, because if I was awake, I couldn't die in my sleep.
Could I?
And the next day, I was first in line at Confession, where the priest chuckled a little at my angst. That was insulting; I was flirting with eternal hellfire, and he thought it was cute.
*************************
So anyway, no meat on Lenten Fridays. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, which were High Holy Days, we had to fast AND abstain. That meant no meat…and no FOOD between meals. Nothing! Not even a stale saltine cracker! And probably no dessert, either, even though that, technically, was PART of a meal.
I might have complained once.
I might have been told that Jesus died on the cross for me, and I was so selfish I couldn't go one day without snacks without complaining.
I did not like Lent. And we're not even talking, yet, about the Giving Up part.
************************************
It occurs to me to wonder, at this advanced age, who, exactly, was responsible for inventing Lent. (The word 'Lent' itself, by the way, is pretty innocuous; grottonetwork.com tells me it's from the Anglo Saxon word 'lencten,' which just referred to the season of Spring, not particularly to a season of sacrifice and repentance.)
In "The Beginning of Lent," an article by Ted Olsen in Christianity Today online, I get some answers. It was the Emperor Constantine's Council of Nicaea in 325 that first floated the idea. Brittanica.com posits that Constantine convened the Council to address an issue: a bunch of heretics led by Arius of Alexandria. Those heretics did not believe in Christ's divinity, and they had to be squelched. So the Emperor drew all of his church leaders together. (The Pope himself did not come, but he did send envoys.)
The Council was responsible for a lot of rules, some implemented and some introduced, and some that remain today.
They decided on consecrating bishops.
They decided against clerical folks also being money lenders.
They toyed with making celibacy mandatory for the Church's priesthood, but they didn't have the support they needed---not right then, anyway.
And they came up with the idea of a 40-day period of fasting and sacrifice just before Easter.
At first, it seems, this Lenten observance was only intended for converts, for those waiting to be baptized at Easter, but the Church as a whole must have resonated: soon, Lent was a season everyone observed.
At first, Lent started on Quadragesima ("the fortieth") Sunday, but Pope Gregory I changed that in the late 500's/early 600's; he moved Lent's start date to a Wednesday. And on that day, he started anointing people's foreheads with a cross of ashes, reminding all that, "...you are dust and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19) Thus Ash Wednesday became the portal to the Lenten season.
*********************************************
Ted Olsen says that the first Lenten rules were pretty darned strict. No meat, fish, or animal product (no butter!!!) was to be eaten. No FOOD at all, in fact was to be eaten until the evening meal.
(I taught at a lovely inner-city Catholic school when I was first starting out, and I helped my wonderful friend Marsha moderate a group called Mission Club. The kids in that club did a lot of nice things, and one of them was to sell pretzels on, I think, Thursdays in Lent. In each baggie we put a little history of the pretzel as Lenten food along with a handful of crisp, salty pretzels. The snack was originally made with no animal products at all, baked up for hungry kids to snack on; the "only one meal" stricture may have had an age requirement to it [only those over 14, maybe?]
And pretzels reminded long ago kids of their faith. The shape represented the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the middle bits recalled people's arms, crossed over their breasts in prayer.)
One thing, though—all over the church, there were little respites built in. In the Eastern church, people took the weekends off from the strenuous Lenten fast. In the Western church, Sunday was a day the Lenten rules did not apply.
(Hah! I thought when I read this. I had friends—some of them very, very holy people—when I was growing up, who insisted that Sundays were days off from Lenten sacrifice.
"No," said my fierce little mother. "Sundays are NOT days off."
And so, sadly, in my house, no chocolate in Lent meant no chocolate all the way through those long, long forty days.)
*************************
By the 800's, church folk were already chafing under, and relaxing, rules. "You can eat any time after 3 p.m.," they decreed.
By the 1400's, that rule was relaxed backward until noon.
And in 1966, the Roman Catholic church decided that the only days their followers must refrain from meat were Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. (Mom, of course, with all the zeal of a convert, snorted at the sissification of the season. In HER house, we did not eat meat on Fridays, and that was that.)
**************************
And let's talk about the practice of giving something up, part of the penitential practice of the Lenten season. I had to be careful deciding what to give up, because there were no takebacks. And if, say, I were to declare that I was giving up CHOCOLATE (!), that, my mother informed me, meant ALL chocolate. I could not just refrain from chocolate candy, say. No, I was barred from eating cupcakes and cookies or drinking hot cocoa. No chocolate ice cream, either.
And no Sundays off.
I thought long and hard about what to give up. It had to hurt, but I didn't want it to hurt TOO much.
***************************
It's funny, though: the very act of sacrifice can, in a way, be a sort of satisfying self-indulgence. "The happiness benefits of sacrifice are backed up by plenty of social science," writes Arthur C. Brooks in "What You Gain When You Give Things Up" (2/18/21, The Atlantic Monthly).
For instance, giving up chocolate or ice cream or deep-fried foods offers health benefits, and better diet often leads to improved mood and outlook. The things we give up—time spent on social media, for instance—are probably not good for us in the first place.
And, Brooks notes, for him, one of the most satisfying parts of Lenten sacrifices is the sense that we're in control: we ARE the masters of our ships. We have GOT this.
And, when our sacrifices benefit others (as say, when a person refrains from smoking in their home, aiding and abetting the lung health of cohabitants), the satisfaction increases. Brooks cites research that shows that people who give things up because the results benefits others reap multiplied benefits.
"Whether you observe Lent or not, consider incorporating sacrifice into your life," writes Brooks.
It's a very interesting concept.
*****************************
Another interesting approach to Lent is to do something positive, rather than giving something up (or, even, along with giving something up.) Brittany Sims offers some possibilities in "10 Things to Do During Lent Besides Giving Something Up" (theodysseyonline.com).
Sims' list includes fasting and cutting back (both forms of giving something up, I think) and attending church services, but she also offers doing good deeds, volunteering, donating, and spending thoughtful time considering our beliefs.
****************************
It's good, I think, to explore the why of things—to ask, where did this tradition come from, and does it still have meaning in my life today? And I like to take the facts I find, spread them out, poke through, and ponder.
And doing that, in this case, leads me to surprising conclusions. I think I was hoping to be able to say, "Well, based on all THAT, we can conclude that observing Lent is just kind of a silly thing."
But it's hard to argue with the benefits of some self-sacrifice, some healthy rigor, and I can't think of any reason to debate the good of sending positivity out into the world. Maybe we don't need to grind down on the grimness, though; maybe, even in times of deep reflection and self-determined stringency, there is still room and reason for a quiet, simmering joy. But maybe there can be real meaning in the ways I observe this season.
************************
So let us Lent, I say, in whatever way is meaningful for each.
No comments:
Post a Comment