…But It Isn’t Lent Yet, Right?
For Trustfulness.
O HEAVENLY Father, thou understandest all thy children; through thy gift of faith we bring our perplexities to the light of thy wisdom, and receive the blessed encouragement of thy sympathy, and a clearer knowledge of thy will. Glory be to thee for all thy gracious gifts. Amen.
The children I am blessed to teach on Sundays in our Children’s Ministry often afford me with much food for thought, much love, and often much laughter. Each week, we look at the Church Calendar and discuss the liturgical season: what color we are in, what the color symbolizes, if we are fasting or feasting, and connecting this current season to previous and upcoming ones. Calendar Time seems to be one of the childrens’ favorite sections of our Godly Play liturgy, as they are quick to pick up the patterns and begin to more fully understand their own role within each season as each year passes. They slowly begin to understand a more sacred rhythm to their lives, and how their lives move according to the life of Christ. It’s very sweet to witness. Yet, within this developing knowledge comes their own opinions on the season.
At one point during Godly Play towards the end of Epiphany, I found myself laughing at their responses to the upcoming rhythm of the Church Calendar. While explaining to them that it was time to “say goodbye” to green for a while due to the end of Epiphany, they began to exclaim happily as they all bid the season of green adieu. It seems they’ve become true Anglicans. Yet, when directing their attention to the upcoming color of purple, celebration ceased and audible groans emerged amidst wide eyes. The children who were a bit older recognized this purple: this purple was the purple of Lent, the purple of fasting, the purple of penance and the purple season that lasted longer than Advent. True Anglicans indeed! It took everything in me not to chuckle as I explained to them it wouldn’t be Lent quite yet, but that we had three weeks of Pre-Lent: everything is purple to remind us that Lent approaches, but we aren’t fasting quite yet. My straight face finally broke when a little one exclaimed, “Why did you scare us like that?” If I had to hazard a guess, I’d imagine most adults feel the same way as these children did.
My husband is going to likely tease me for writing a blog post relating to the topic of Lent. “But you enjoy Lent!” he’ll exclaim. It’s true, and no secret to a lot of people that I do actually enjoy Lent quite a bit. As hard as giving up so much is, it always feels right to be doing it with the rest of our community. As Fr. Hayden discussed in his blog post a few weeks ago, there is no joy that does not first know the cross, and no narrative of salvation that is not first accomplished within the Incarnation of the Word. St. Athanasius in On the Incarnation describes that the Incarnation and its implications for salvation are ever and always experienced: we do not celebrate the Incarnation in Christmastide without ever looking forward to Christ’s death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Likewise, the grief of the cross in Lent and joy of Easter are not accomplished without his conception remembered in Advent and his incarnation commemorated in Christmastide.
The longer I’ve surrendered myself to this mode of life, the more balance I’ve found between Lent and Easter. Yes, I still perhaps dread Lent less than your average Anglican, but I’ve also grown in my spiritual life to love Eastertide and Epiphany. Joy to hold in tandem with suffering as I seek to more and more die to self and live to Christ.
This I think is the beauty and one of the goals of living within sacred time. We begin to experience the fullness of time, ever at one looking ahead, looking behind, and weaving both narratives into the present day’s experiences. Thus, we are taken out of ourselves into the shared experiences of the Church, not to lessen the intricacies of our own narrative or preferences–it’s still ok to look on Lent with apprehension–but to sanctify and redeem them within Christ.
Pre-Lent lives into the weaving of narratives throughout the Calendar. Even the names of Septuagesima, Sexigesima, and Quinquagesima denote not how many days until Lent, but how many days until Easter. Though a purple color, the burying of the alleluia, and a lack of altar flowers remind us of the Great Fast approaching, we still enjoy for a few more weeks the good gifts God has given us by toasting with loved ones over a glass of wine, a sweet treat, or a luxurious meal. We are given three weeks to ease into fasting, and to, most importantly, prepare our hearts to deliberately walk once more with Christ to the cross. Pre-Lent is a mercy and one we should hold dear, making use of the time given to us so that we can enter into the Great Fast with thoughtful surrender, as opposed to unwilling compliance.
I’ll leave you with the words of the great Fr. Alexander Schmemann in his lecture, “Faith as Conversion Part 2.”
“We are approaching something beautiful, that is the bright sadness of Lent. For Lent is not as people think, a concentration of my sins. Lent does only one thing: by showing us the sadness of its depths, it shows us what we have lost because we have sinned. It’s not a morbid introspection…it is introducing us into the other reality, and as you stand in this majesty, if you open your heart, you are there. It’s something of which nothing in this world will give you.”