The Mystery of Lent
By Prosper Guéranger
We may
be sure, that a season, so sacred as this of Lent, is rich in
mysteries. The Church has made it a time of recollection and
penance, in preparation for the greatest of all her Feasts; she
would, therefore, bring into it everything that could excite the
faith of her children, and encourage them to go through the
arduous work of atonement for their sins. During Septuagesima, we
had the number Seventy, which reminded us of those seventy years’
captivity in Babylon, after which, God’s chosen people, being
purified from idolatry, was to return to Jerusalem and celebrate
the Pasch. It is the number Forty that the Church now brings
before us: - a number, as Saint Jerome observes, which denotes
punishment and affliction [In Ezechiel, cap. xxix].
Let us
remember the forty days and forty nights of the Deluge (Gen. vii.
12), sent by God in his anger, when he repented that he had made
man, and destroyed the whole human race, with the exception of one
family. Let us consider how the Hebrew people, in punishment for
their ingratitude, wandered forty years in the desert, before they
were permitted to enter the Promised Land [Num. xiv. 33]. Let us
listen to our God commanding the Prophet Ezechiel to lie forty
days on his right side, as a figure of the siege, which was to
bring destruction on Jerusalem [Ezech. iv. 6].
There
are two, in the Old Testament, who represent, in their own
persons, the two manifestations of God: Moses, who typifies the
Law; and Elias, who is the figure of the Prophets. Both of these
are permitted to approach God, - the first on Sinai [Exod. xxiv.
18], the second on Horeb [3 Kings, xix. 8], - but both of them
have to prepare for the great favour by an expiatory fast of forty
days.
With
these mysterious facts before us, we can understand why it was,
that the Son of God, having become Man for our salvation, and
wishing to subject himself to the pain of fasting, chose the
number of Forty Days. The institution of Lent is thus brought
before us with everything that can impress the mind with its
solemn character, and with its power of appeasing God and
purifying our souls. Let us, there fore, look beyond the little
world which surrounds us, and see how the whole Christian universe
is, at this very time, offering this Forty Days’ penance as a
sacrifice of propitiation to the offended Majesty of God; and let
us hope, that, as in the case of the Ninivites, he will mercifully
accept this year’s offering of our atonement, and pardon us our
sins.
The
number of our days of Lent is, then, a holy mystery: let us, now,
learn from the Liturgy, in what light the Church views her
Children during these Forty Days. She considers them as an immense
army, fighting, day and night, against their Spiritual enemies. We
remember how, on Ash Wednesday, she calls Lent a Christian
Warefare. Yes, - in order that we may have that newness of life,
which will make us worthy to sing once more our Alleluia, - we
must conquer our three enemies the devil, the flesh, and the
world. We are fellow combatants with our Jesus, for He, too,
submits to the triple temptation, suggested to him by Satan in
person. Therefore, we must have on our armour, and watch
unceasingly. And whereas it is of the utmost importance that our
hearts be spirited and brave, - the Church gives us a war-song of
heaven’s own making, which can fire even cowards with hope of
victory and confidence in God’s help: it is the Ninetieth Psalm
[Ps. Qui habitat in adjutorio, in the Office of Compline]. She
inserts the whole of it in the Mass of the First Sunday of Lent,
and, every day, introduces several of its verses in the Ferial
Office.
She
there tells us to rely on the protection, wherewith our Heavenly
Father covers us, as with a shield [Scuto circumdabit to veritas
ejus. Office of None.]; to hope under the shelter of his wings [Et
sub pennis ejus sperabis. Sext.]; to have confidence in him, for
that he will deliver us from the snare of the hunter [Ipse
liberavit me de laqueo venantium. Tierce.], who had robbed us of
the holy liberty of the children of God; to rely upon the succour
of the Holy Angels, who are our Brothers, to whom our Lord hath
given charge that they keep us in all our ways [Angelis suis
mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. Lauds and
Vespers.], and who, when our Jesus permitted Satan to tempt him,
were the adoring witnesses of his combat, and approached him,
after his victory, proffering to him their service and homage. Let
us get well into us these sentiments wherewith the Church would
have us be inspired; and, during our six weeks’ campaign, let us
often repeat this admirable Canticle, which so fully describes
what the Soldiers of Christ should be and feel in this season of
the great spiritual warfare.
But the
Church is not satisfied with thus animating us to the contest with
our enemies; - she would also have our minds engrossed with
thoughts of deepest import; and for this end, she puts before us
three great subjects, which she will gradually unfold to us
between this and the great Easter Solemnity. Let us be all
attention to these soul-stirring and instructive lessons.
And
firstly, there is the conspiracy of the Jews against our Redeemer.
It will be brought before us in its whole history, from its first
formation to its final consummation on the great Friday, when we
shall behold the Son of God hanging on the Wood of the Cross. The
infamous workings of the synagogue will be brought before us so
regularly, that we shall be able to follow the plot in all its
details. We shall be inflamed with love for the august Victim,
whose meekness, wisdom, and dignity, bespeak a God. The divine
drama, which began in the cave of Bethlehem, is to close on
Calvary; we may assist at it, by meditating on the passages of the
Gospel read to us, by the Church, during these days of Lent.
The
second of the subjects offered to us, for our instruction,
requires that we should remember how the Feast of Easter is to be
the day of new birth for our Catechumens; and how, in the early
ages of the Church, Lent was the immediate and solemn preparation
given to the candidates for Baptism. The holy Liturgy of the
present season retains much of the instruction she used to give to
the Catechumens; and as we listen to her magnificent Lessons from
both the Old and the New Testament, whereby she completed their
initiation, we ought to think with gratitude on how we were not
required to wait years before being made Children of God, but were
mercifully admitted to Baptism, even in our Infancy. We shall be
led to pray for those new Catechumens, who this very year, in far
distant countries, are receiving instructions from their zealous
Missioners, and are looking forward, as did the postulants of the
primitive Church, to that grand Feast of our Saviour’s victory
over Death, when they are to be cleansed in the Waters of Baptism
and receive from the contact a flew being, - regeneration.
Thirdly,
we must remember how, formerly, the public Penitents, who had been
separated, on Ash Wednesday, from the assembly of the Faithful,
were the object of the Church’s maternal solicitude during the
whole Forty Days of Lent, and were to be admitted to
Reconciliation on Maundy Thursday, if their repentance were such
as to merit this public forgiveness. We shall have the admirable
course of instructions, which were originally designed for these
Penitents, and which the Liturgy, faithful as she ever is to such
traditions, still retains for our sakes. As we read these sublime
passages of the Scripture, we shall naturally think upon our own
sins, and on what easy terms they were pardoned us; whereas, had
we lived in other times, we should have probably been put through
the ordeal of a public and severe penance. This will excite us to
fervour, for we shall remember, that, whatever changes the
indulgence of the Church may lead her to make in her discipline,
the justice of our God is ever the same. We shall find in all this
an additional motive for offering to his Divine Majesty the
sacrifice of a contrite heart, and we shall go through our
penances with that cheerful eagerness, which the conviction of our
deserving much severer ones always brings with it.
In
order to keep up the character of mournfulness and austerity which
is so well-suited to Lent, the Church, for many centuries,
admitted very few Feasts into this portion of her year, inasmuch
as there is always joy, where there is even a spiritual Feast. In
the 4th century, we have the Council of Laodicea forbidding, in
its fifty-first canon, the keeping a Feast or commemoration of any
Saint, during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays or Sundays [Labbe,
Concil., tom. i.]. The Greek Church rigidly maintained this point
of Lenten Discipline; nor was it till many centuries after the
Council of Laodicea that she made an exception for the 25th of
March, on which day she now keeps the Feast of our Lady’s
Annunciation.
The
Church of Rome maintained this same discipline, at least in
principle; but she admitted the Feast of the Annunciation at a
very early period, and somewhat later, the Feast of the Apostle
St. Matthias, on the 24th of February. During the last few
centuries, she has admitted several other Feasts into that portion
of her general Calendar which coincides with Lent; still, she
observes a certain restriction, out of respect for the ancient
practice.
The
reason of the Church of Rome being less severe on this point of
excluding the Saints’ Feasts during Lent, is, that the
Christians of the West have never looked upon the celebration of a
Feast as incompatible with fasting; the Greeks, on the contrary,
believe that the two are irreconcilable, and as a consequence of
this principle, never observe Saturday as a fasting-day, because
they always keep it as a Solemnity, though they make Holy Saturday
an exception, and fast upon it. For the same reason, they do not
fast upon the Annunciation.
This
strange idea gave rise, in or about the 7th century, to a custom
which is peculiar to the Greek Church. It is called the Mass of
the Presanctified, that is to say, consecrated in a previous
Sacrifice. On each Sunday of Lent, the Priest consecrates six
Hosts, one of which he receives in that Mass; but the remaining
five are reserved for a simple Communion, which is made on each of
the five following days, without the Holy Sacrifice being offered.
The Latin Church practises this rite only once in the year, that
is, on Good Friday, and this in commemoration of a sublime
mystery, which we will explain in its proper place.
This
custom of the Greek Church was evidently suggested by the 49th
Canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbids the offering the
Bread of sacrifice during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays and
Sundays [Labbe, Concil., tom. i.]. The Greeks, some centuries
later on, concluded from this Canon, that the celebration of the
Holy Sacrifice was incompatible with fasting; and we learn from
the Controversy they had, in the 9th century, with the Legate
Humbert [Centra Nicetam., tom. iv.], that the Mass of the
Presanctified, (which has no other authority to rest on save a
Canon of the famous Council in Trullo [Can. 52. Labbe, Concil.
tom. vi.] held in 692,) was justified by the Greeks on this absurd
plea, - that the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord broke
the Lenten Fast.
The
Greeks celebrate this rite in the evening, after Vespers, and the
Priest alone communicates, as is done now in the Roman Liturgy on
Good Friday. But for many centuries, they have made an exception
for the Annunciation; they interrupt the Lenten fast on this
Feast, they celebrate Mass, and the Faithful are allowed to
receive Holy Communion.
The
Canon of the Council of Laodicea was probably never received in
the Western Church. If the suspension of the Holy Sacrifice during
Lent was ever practised in Rome, it was only on the Thursdays; and
even that custom was abandoned in the 8th century, as we learn
from Anastasius the Librarian, who tells us that Pope St. Gregory
the Second, desiring to complete the Roman Sacramentary, added
Masses for the Thursdays of the first five weeks of Lent [Anastas.
In Gregorio II]. It is difficult to assign the reason of this
interruption of the Mass on Thursdays in the Roman Church, or of
the like custom observed by the Church of Milan on the Fridays of
Lent. The explanations we have found in different authors are not
satisfactory. As far as Milan is concerned, we are inclined to
think, that not satisfied with the mere adoption of the Roman
usage of not celebrating Mass on Good Friday, the Ambrosian Church
extended the rite to all the Fridays of Lent.
After
thus briefly alluding to these details, we must close our present
Chapter by a few words on the holy rites, which are now observed,
during Lent, in our Western Churches. We have explained several of
these in our “Septuagesima.” [See their explanation in the
volume for Septuagesima]. The suspension of the Alleluia; the
purple vestments; the laying aside the deacon’s Dalmatic, and
the subdeacon’s Tunic; the omission of the two joyful canticles,
- the Gloria in excelsis, and the Te Deum; the substitution of the
mournful Tract for the Alleluia verse in the Mass; the Benedicamus
Domino instead of the Ite, Missa est; the additional Prayer said
over the people after the Post-communion Collects on Ferial Days ;
the saying the Vesper Office before mid-day, excepting on the
Sundays; - all these are familiar to our readers. We have only now
to mention, in addition, the genuflections prescribed for the
conclusion of all the Hours of the Divine Office on Ferias, and
the rubric which bids the Choir to kneel, on those same Days,
during the Canon of the Mass.
There
were other ceremonies peculiar to the season of Lent, which were
observed in the Churches of the West, but which have now, for many
centuries, fallen into general disuse; we say general, because
they are still partially kept up in some places. Of these rites,
the most imposing was that of putting up a large veil between the
Choir and the Altar, so that neither clergy nor people could look
upon the Holy Mysteries celebrated within the Sanctuary. This veil
- which was called the Curtain, and, generally speaking, was of a
purple colour - was a symbol of the penance to which the sinner
ought to subject himself, in order to merit the sight of that
Divine Majesty, before whose face he had committed so many
outrages. It signified, moreover, the humiliations endured by our
Redeemer, who was a stumbling-block to the proud Synagogue. But,
as a veil that is suddenly drawn aside, these humiliations were to
give way, and be changed into the glories of the Resurrection
[Honorius of Autun. Gemma animae. Lib. iii. cap. lxvi.]. Among
other places where this rite is still observed, we may mention the
Metropolitan Church of Paris, Notre Dame.
It was
the custom also, in many Churches, to veil the Crucifix and the
Statues of the Saints as soon as Lent began; in order to excite
the Faithful to a livelier sense of penance, they were deprived of
the consolation which the sight of these holy Images always brings
to the soul. But this custom, which is still retained in some
places, was less general than the more expressive one used in the
Roman Church, and which we will explain in our next volume, - we
mean the veiling the Crucifix and Statues only in Passion Time.
We
learn from the Ceremonials of the Middle Ages, that, during Lent,
and particularly on the Wednesdays and Fridays, processions used
frequently to be made from one Church to another. In Monasteries,
these Processions were made in the Cloister, and barefooted
[Martène. De antiquis Eccles ritibus. Tom. iii. cap. xviii.].
This custom was suggested by the practice of Rome, where there is
a Station for every day of Lent, and which, for many centuries,
began by a procession to the Stational Church.
Lastly, - the Church has always been
in the habit of adding to her prayers during the Season of Lent.
Her present discipline is, that, on Ferias, in Cathedral and
Collegiate Churches, (which are not exempted by a custom to the
contrary,) the following additions are to be made to the Canonical
Hours: on Mondays, the Office of the Dead; on Wednesday, the
Gradual Psalms; and on Fridays, the Penitential Psalms. In some
Churches, during the Middle-Ages, the whole Psaltery was added
each week of Lent to the usual Office [Martène. De antiquis
Eccles ritibus. Tom. iii. cap. xviii.].
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