DEACON KEITH FOURNIER — Christians are currently in the annual 40-day period of prayer, penance, reflection and fasting called Lent. It begins on Ash Wednesday every year (February 10th, this year) and ends with the Easter celebration.

Every Ash Wednesday, I administer ashes to the faithful in my parish who come forward as pilgrims on this journey of repentance and conversion. I also receive the sign of ashes on my own forehead. Ashes have been a sign of repentance among the Jewish and Christian faithful for millennia.

The word Lent is derived from the lengthening of the hours of the day each year. It falls in the transition time when we move from the long, dark, barren days of winter into the verdant new life and longer days of sunshine we call spring.  Lent is also called the Forty Days.

Why Forty Days?

The Jewish people and the early Christian community believed in a fully integrated spirituality and the presence of God in the entirety of human existence — including the symbolic meaning of numbers like 40. There are several forty periods in the history of Salvation found in the Hebrew Scriptures.

For example, the forty days Moses was on the Mountain and received the Law. (Exodus 24:18) The story of the spies recorded in the Book of Numbers results in their being sentenced for forty years. (Numbers 13:26, 14:34). There were forty days for the great Prophet Elijah in Horeb (1 Kings 19:8) The prophet Jonah was sent to Nineveh for forty days. And, of course, the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years before their deliverance from the bondage of the Egyptians was completed and they passed into the Land of Promise.

However, the greatest significance of the number forty was taken up and fulfilled in Jesus’ mission on Earth, which began with forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert, being tempted by the Devil. (Matthew 4:2) He gives the forty day Lenten period its deepest meaning for those Christians who choose to observe it. This One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells shows us the very meaning of our lives. This forty days calls us to enter into the desert with Him.

There, He who knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), the One who became a man like us “in all things but sin” enters into the temptations we face and shows us the way to overcome them in our own lives. (Heb. 2 and 4)  In Him we can now overcome temptation and progress toward the freedom to which we are all called.

After a saving life of selfless love, Jesus mounted the Second Tree of the Cross and opened His arms to embrace the world which had rejected God. Now, with His voluntary sacrifice of Love complete, the Tomb lies empty. Death, the final enemy and result of sin, has been defeated and the fruits of the redemption are being borne!

He was seen in His resurrected glory by his disciples for forty days. (Acts 1:2) During that time he continued to prepare the New Israel, His Church, which had been birthed from the water and blood which flowed from His wounded side on Calvary. To that Church he entrusted his continuing redemptive mission until His glorious return. To that Church he entrusted His Word, His Spirit and Sacramental grace.

Each of the forty day or forty year periods mentioned above was preparatory. So it is for me as I enter each year into Lent. We can all grow in Christian maturity, as we cooperate with God’s grace, turn away from sin, and chose, over and over again, to follow Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17) We can progress in the call to be made new.

During Lent we are called to engage in spiritual warfare. (See 2 Cor. 10:4, Eph. 6: 14 – 16) We do battle with the “world”, the “flesh” and, yes, the Devil. Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44), is the enemy of Jesus Christ and therefore the enemy of all who follow Him.

Who Needs Lent? I Do

When I was a college student, a priest friend used to say, several weeks before Lent even began, that he “looked forward to Lent.” Frankly, I thought that such a longing was odd. I viewed Lent as an imposition. But no longer. I welcome it as a time to grow closer to the Lord and renew my decision to follow and serve Him.

As I age, I come to appreciate the seasons of the Liturgical year in my tradition even more. Unlike my youth when I thought I had it all figured out, something quite different has occurred as my hair has turned white and increasingly sparse. As I continue on in my journey of faith, I am ever more aware of my inadequacies and need for the Lords grace.

I have also come to realize how little I do know and how much there is to for me to learn, as a disciple, a student of the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. I recognize, by the Lord’s grace, how much more conversion I need — to live for him now and get ready for that coming day when I will pass from one life to the next.

Every Lent is a reminder of my mortality. In an age drunk on self-worship, a reminder of the brevity of our days draws me to my knees. From there I can best look up at the Cross which bridges heaven and earth. There at the altar of the New World, where Jesus Christ became our Paschal Sacrifice, I can climb into His wounded side and find rest and renewal for the journey of living faith and discipleship.