Part II

Before moving on to how the Christian community participates in Lent, it is worth noting that Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions as well as many other religions designate a practice, day, or an extended period of time devoted to repentance, intentional reflection, and life-renewal. Two examples are The Days of Awe and Ramadan.

In Jewish life, the ten Days of Awe or the Days of Repentance (Yamim Noraim) beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur invites a spirit of self-examination, introspection, and repentance and calls for the three practices of repentance (teshuva), prayer (tefilah), and good deeds (tzedakah).

In the Islamic tradition, during the month of Ramadan, Muslims are expected to fast from food, drink, smoking, and sexual relations from sunrise to sunset. The Arabic word for fasting which means “to refrain,” applies not only to food but also to thoughts, words, or actions that are offensive to Allah and harmful to others. This month of spiritual realignment also involves more focused attention to family gatherings, reading sacred scriptures, and charity.

There appears to be a propensity among conscientious humans to take inventory of our lives, to acknowledge mistakes and wrongs done or good deeds left undone, to express remorse with the intention of reorienting ourselves to our particular path of meaning and wholeness, and to refrain consciously for a time from either good and pleasurable activity or from this point forward to fast from thoughts, words, or deeds that prevent or damage our attunement with the Divine, others, or our authentic selves.

The Practices of Lent

The long arc of wisdom within the Christian community of faith counsels that the two-fold movement of the Paschal Mystery be given expression in three spiritual practices:

prayer, fasting, and almsgiving

Inherent in each of the three practices, the idea of transfer predominates, and the movement represents a fundamental and conscious shift in the spiritual economy of both the individual and the community of faith to restore the right relationship and the just balance that reflects the shalem (wholeness) and the shalom (peace) of the reign of God.

At the heart of each practice is the shift from self to other. And the transfer, whether of attention, orientation, or resources, is enacted in the rhythm from giving up to giving over, from emptying to filling, from fasting to feasting. If we miss this movement, we risk missing the meaning of Lent and its practices become merely robotic instead of genuinely renewing. Simply stated, the “purpose” of Lent is Easter. Therefore, the litmus test of any practice, whether one of renunciation, reflection, or action, is whether it enlarges our heart to love and enables us to experience and participate in more deeply the fullness of life.

Prayer

In the life of faith, there is no season devoid of prayer. But during Lent, our prayer takes on a different tone and focus. Lent both invites a different pace and involves creating a sacred space for self-examination and life-review, intimacy with God, and charity toward the most vulnerable and needy. Lenten prayer is marked by a more intense awareness of who resides at the center of our prayer. As we let go of our self-preoccupation, we consciously remove ourselves from the center of our prayer and re-center ourselves in God. We forget ourselves and re-member ourselves to the one Divine Love. Rabbi Abraham Heschel has something to teach us when he says, “To worship God is to forget the self.” Growth in prayer almost always means a migration of attention from oneself to the Other and to others. Therefore, Lent is a great season for both contemplative and intercessory prayer.

At its core, contemplative prayer is agenda-less prayer. In contemplative prayer we give up our legitimate, perceived, or concocted needs and give ourselves over in radical trust to God in whom we live and move and have our being. It invites being and gently discards any notion of prayer as doing. Its methodless method is simple presence. James Finley describes contemplative prayer as “a wordless awareness of oneness with God beyond what thoughts can grasp or words can adequately convey.” Soaking in the presence of God beyond words or thoughts, contemplation is the training ground for learning the movement from giving up to giving over.

Lent is also a great time for intercessory prayer in which we shift the focus of our prayer from self to others by entrusting them to God. We can do this by praying for those who are dear to us, those in our families, circles of friends, and communities of faith. A good way to do this while in the car driving or out walking or knitting or gardening (anytime works), is simply to offer the person by name to God. That’s all. Just re-membering them to God without asking for anything in particular is a way of practicing a spirituality of relinquishment and a radical trust that runs deeper than whether or not God “does” what we want done. Another intercessory prayer that can be used at any time is the rhythmic litany that I wrote for our closing prayer at the end of our The Human & the Holy gatherings:

   (Name of the person)  ,
encircle, encourage, enliven, O God.
Comfort, strengthen, and heal.

Lent is also a good time to widen the circle of our awareness and concern. It is a time to stretch ourselves by stretching our prayer to those whom we may not know, especially the anawim who are most vulnerable: those who are lonely, neglected, sick, dying, hungry, homeless, without work, without meaning, the victims of prejudice, violence, injustice, poverty, and war. As a practice, consider turning the volume down on the TV News once a week and pray for those who like icons appear on screen from Beijing or Chechnya or Afghanistan or the frozen streets of Watertown, New York. It is also a time to pray for those whom we find it hard to like let alone love, or for those from whom we are alienated, those we have hurt or perhaps persons by whom we have been wounded. To those whom we have hurt we can express remorse and ask forgiveness (in person or in our hearts). For those who have hurt us, we can dare to let go of their hold on us by simply (or not so simply) shifting from taking their name in vain to naming them to God.

To be continued—

~ Dan