P. Fintan Lyons O.S.B.
Lent is not likely to be anyone’s favourite season. There is enough to contend with in the weather of February and March, even if the days towards the end are brighter and there are signs of growth in an already resurgent nature. The most perceptible positive feature of the passing weeks is that they do begin to hint at a happy outcome, resurgence of a kind for all. But there is a problem for those who are loyal to religious practice with its acceptance of penance in anticipation of Easter joy. They may be discouraged by the prevailing scepticism about everything to do with religion, as other meanings continue to be sought for what is perceived as a coming protracted weekend.
Secularising the religious feast
A secular feast can be created by dining out when it all begins on the Friday, as many do, while at home there will be Easter eggs and games for children. It is also an occasion to parade new fashions, not realising that in the liturgy there is a tradition of white garments at Easter going back to the gospel accounts of men in white meeting the women who came to the tomb on Easter morning, as well as the wearing of white garments by those baptised at Easter. A subtle feature of the secularisation of Easter is the renaming of Holy Saturday as Easter Saturday – after all, the word Easter comes from the Old English name of the goddess, Eostre, so that the weekend can logically have a wholly secular or pagan connotation. Yet the faithful who have to struggle against all this can sense too that there is still in secular society an inherited undercurrent of Christian culture that associates Easter with newness, with a positive outlook on life for the months ahead.
It is for those who are religious to make that culture a perceptible force in society, to transform otherwise dreary months into a whole season of hope and expectation by making clear Lent’s reason for existing, namely the three days of celebration of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. This is the reality that gave Lent its origin and gives it its meaning. As a season in the Church’s yearly cycle it developed gradually, evolving from an original two days of fasting, Friday and Saturday, and little in the way of liturgical activity in advance of the great Easter Vigil, except that vigilant fast itself. In the early centuries it was seen to be appropriate for a period of preparation to be introduced for the baptism of the newly converted at the Easter Vigil, so that they would rise to new life with the risen Lord.
Preparing for Lent
As this time could be seen as preparation for the Christian life of mission, a period of forty days duration found its inspiration in Jesus’ own preparation for his mission by his forty days fast in the desert. It came then to be a season of fasting for all, penitential in the sense of purification in preparation for the transformative feast of the Pasch, as the original name expresses it. Hence, a fast before a feast, in accordance with the context in which Jesus himself put fasting, when he said that when he, the bridegroom, was taken away, then the disciples would fast (Mt 9:14). If it is a penitential season, it is also one of joyful anticipation of the return of the Lord from death bringing new life to the world, a new creation as St Paul puts it (2 Cor 5:17).
A brief history of fasting
In the history of Christianity, fasting came to be practised also outside that context of the Church’s feasts. An ascetical way of life began to be practised by people who wished to go apart from a corrupt society. This was a time when Christianity was no longer persecuted but had been integrated into the Roman Empire, with church leaders now belonging to the upper echelons of society and prone to the corruption that was part of the way of life of a prosperous pagan world. The solitude of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts, where food was hard to come by, was the obvious setting for men and women who decided to go apart in a desire to control all natural desires such as appetite, and in general to subdue the passions.
That way of life was admired but not imitated by the Christian population in general; the members of the community did observe fasts from the early centuries onwards, basically connected with the seasonal feasts, but also as part of their Jewish Christian heritage. Jews fasted on Mondays and Thursdays; to distinguish themselves from Jewish tradition, Christians fasted on Tuesdays and Fridays, with Friday having the particular significance of commemorating the Lord’s crucifixion. These were penitential exercises but were not of the extreme kind practised by the desert dwellers. In fact, fasting could have diverse meanings; it could mean simply postponing the single meal which was the norm in Roman society, or it could mean abstaining from certain foods or reducing the quantity consumed.
In the early centuries the nature of fasting did not have the exactness associated with later centuries – with the Lenten Regulations read out in church a generation ago. For example in the sixth-century, St Benedict in his Rule only required moderation in all things, and that in Lent the monk should deny himself ‘some food, drink, sleep, needless talking and idle jesting.’ He should ‘look forward to Easter with joy and spiritual longing’.
The symbolism of food
Symbolic acts are important in a truly human life. Food is fundamental to the continuance of life and has its symbolic as well as its nutritional role. It functions most symbolically in the feast that is central to the Christian life, the Eucharist, and is at the heart of most festivities, though it can also function symbolically by being restricted or even by its absence. The church’s feasts and seasons need to be seen in the overall context of food, feast and fast, and restriction of food intake can be a powerful way of living with Lent.
Fintan Lyons’ new book ‘Food, Feast and Fast’ is available from Columba Books. Pre-order your copy today from www.columbabooks.com