Lenting observance as a form of Christian witness
Conventionally, Lent is described as being forty days long though different denominations calculate the 40-days differently. As observed, there are 40 days in Lent but if you begin with Ash-Wednesday and count to Holy Saturday, you will have too many days. That is because Sundays are days in Lent but not of Lent. As the […]
Conventionally, Lent is described as being forty days long though different denominations calculate the 40-days differently. As observed, there are 40 days in Lent but if you begin with Ash-Wednesday and count to Holy Saturday, you will have too many days. That is because Sundays are days in Lent but not of Lent. As the primary celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Sundays are always feast days and whatever Lenten discipline one has adopted is “relaxed” on Sundays. For the first centuries of the Christian church, the period of fasting in preparation for Easter lasted two or three days [similar to the practice in Islam when at the beginning it was on the day of atonement (Ashura) in Judaism]. The later prescribed 40-day fast, suggested by the fasts of Moses (Exodus 34: 28), Elijah (1 Kgs. 19:8), and Jesus Himself ( Matt. 4: 2), emerged by 325 A.D. as a time of preparation for baptismal candidates who would be initiated into the faith at their baptisms at the Great Vigil of Easter. During the early centuries, only one meal a day was allowed and meat, fish, eggs, cheese and milk were forbidden. Unfortunately, over the centuries, the Lenten fast has become more and more relaxed in the Western Churches, so much so that Rome (Feb. 1966) officially mandated a fast only on Ash-Wednesday and Good Friday. This Western laziness to spirituality has so badly infested the Church in Nigeria today that for many millions one is forced to ask: “is it really Lenten season?”
What does the word lent mean-how did it originate? In Latin, the term quadragesima (translation of the original Greek tessarakoste, the “fortieth” day before Easter) is used. This nomenclature is preserved in Celtic languages. In the late Middle Ages, as sermons begun to be given in the vernacular instead of Latin, the English word lent was adopted. This word initially simply meant spring (as in German language and Dutch lente) and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.
While our Muslim neighbours have kept their spiritual discipline of having a meal a day and abstaining from all luxuries, reading the entire Qur’an during the 30-day Ramadhan period and giving away the tithe from fasting (zakat sawm), Christians in their millions in Nigeria do not pay any attention to this ancient spiritual discipline of the Church. Is it therefore a surprise that celebration of Easter has become mainly social celebration and the materialistic world has taken it over? Is it any surprise that this period of Christian spiritual discipline does not affect our social life as it used to in the early Church and still does in the Middle East where this discipline is still observed? One of the early church Fathers from Africa noted how faithfully other Christian parts of the world were observing Lent and called on the members of his diocese (Alexandria)to have a change of attitude in these words: …to the end that while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should not become a laughing-stock as the only people who do not fast, but take our pleasure in those days… (St. Athanasius in (“Festal Letters”).
A Christian custom: Not a Biblical requirement.
The Lenten Fast is not commanded or even mentioned in the Bible unlike the month of Ramadhan fast which is specifically commanded in the Qur’an (Q.2:183-185) revealed to abolish the ‘Ashura’. However, by A.D. 300, the week before Easter was apparently an especially strict fast in addition to the forty Day Lenten fast preceding it. By what date we are not certain, but the early Church had training “classes” for those who became Christians, lasting for as long as 2-3 years. Often the new Christians would be baptized on Easter, after first fasting for two or three days. This is the origin of Lenten fasting.
Customs associated with Lent
Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations. However, in Kaduna Diocese, we have continued to encourage a return to the ancient practice of seriously and solemnly observing the Lenten discipline as faithfully done in the early Church by encouraging “self-denial” and eating just one meal a day. This, we see as our corporate witness among our Muslim neighbours who have never relaxed their spiritual discipline during the holy month of Ramadhan fast. In these days of spiritual laxity with a resultant increase in immorality, corruption in both high and low places, violence, and godlessness, we appeal to all the faithful Christians to remember the words of St. Paul:
Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit…glorify God with your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
The modern heresy which separates the physical body from the spiritual, the mind from the spirit is one great reason for the decline in the custom of Lenten discipline. Such a false spirituality ignores the role of the body in the spiritual life. The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God (remember the children of Israel on the journey to the Land of Promise). Real hunger, which produces tiredness and physical exhaustion, leads to a sense of inward brokenness and contrition. When we are always full, we feel autonomous and over confident in our own self-sufficiency. Hunger creates in us a poor spirit aware of its dependence on God. Outwardly, fasting (total abstinence) produces in our bodies a sense of lightness, wakefulness, freedom and joy. Many find that, after a time, they need less sleep, think more clearly and work more decisively. Fasting can be cleansing and can help eliminate toxins from our bodies and restore us to greater balance. But fasting is not a mere diet. Its inward moral dimension is marked by a converted heart and will. In returning to God, we fast not just from food but from sin.
The fast should be kept not just by the mouth alone but also by the eye, the ear, the feet, the hands and all the members of the body (St. John Chrysostom).
Fasting, separated from prayer and acts of compassion, is mere symbol and can even be destructive. In the Gospels and early church experience, prayer and fasting together cast out demons (Matt. 17: 21, Mk.9:29), guide community discernment (Acts. 13:3, 14:23) and prepare one to encounter God (Acts. 10:9-17). Fasting helps us to identify with the involuntary hungry of the world. The tradition of almsgiving, giving of money saved from fasting rather than feasting, to the widows, the orphans and the poor, goes back to the second century. But almsgiving in not merely charity; it is, rather, to give not only what we have but who we are: our time, our talents, our selves.
“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” (Lenten Invitation, Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. Book of Common Prayer, p.265).
Josiah Idowu Fearon (Anglican bishop of Kaduna)