A Beacon Of Light . . . Approaching The Holy Season Of Lent

• 3 years ago

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

(Editor’s Note: Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.)

• + + It is hard to believe that February is already upon us. It is even harder to believe how close to the Lenten Season we are. This Holy Season of Lent is preceded by the celebration of “carnival” more commonly known as Mardi gras. The Carnival of Mardi Gras usually begins after the Epiphany and ends the night before Ash Wednesday, called Mardi gras, or Fat Tuesday. Currently, many people around the world are celebrating Mardi gras.
  
  Did you know part of that celebration includes the wearing of masks? These masks are often used to disguise oneself, to participate in the shrove festivities without fear of being recognized. The masks, however, are meant to be a disguise for a certain amount of time and then be discarded.
  
  Sadly, today, however, many people have not shed their Mardi gras masks. Their masks become permanent! So many people live their lives behind a mask because they don’t want others to see their true colors. Some are ashamed of themselves and can’t deal with the person they really are. Fearful of what others might say, they live behind their masks trying to be someone they are not.
  
  We’re not so different from these carnival-goers, are we? About a year now, we have lived wearing masks. Our masks protect us from a worldwide virus, but they still have the potential to mask something about us.
  
  On Ash Wednesday we begin the Season of Lent, a season of transformation, a season when we can come before the Lord and shed the masks that cause difficulties in our lives. Jesus wants the truth and the power of His love to penetrate and transform our lives.
  
  But He needs us to take off our masks for that to happen. He needs us to peel them away, like peeling an old bandage, so that His grace can heal our wounds.

The Three Masks

He points to three masks needing our attention. What are these masks?

First, we wear the mask that blocks our relationship with God. This is the one Jesus points to in the Gospel challenging us to be people of prayer. He tells us to work on our prayer life, in sincerity of heart, not just going through the motions. He wants our prayers to have meaning, enabling us to grow in our relationship with Him.

Second, we wear a mask that hinders our relationship with other people. This is the one Jesus points to when He tells us to give alms in secret. He wants us to open our hearts to our neighbors. He wants us to care about them, to be interested in them, to look for ways to serve and encourage them, instead of looking for ways to take advantage of them.

Third, we wear a mask that blocks our growth in spiritual maturity. This is the one Jesus points to when He tells us to fast in secret. He wants us to learn the art of self-governance and self-discipline, of humility and nobility. He wants to free us from the degrading slavery to our base instincts of worldly desires.

On Ash Wednesday the ashes we receive are meant to remind us of these things. They remind us we are sinners. That even though we are children of God, we still experience the fallen world. Sin and temptation separate us from God, who is the source of all life. Our sinfulness makes us lifeless in the Lord’s eyes, like lifeless ashes, the leftovers of burned palms. Ashes remind us that our sins are acts of selfishness and cause damage to our souls. These ashes are made from palm branches we bless on Palm Sunday.

They symbolized Christ’s victory over sin. Our sins forfeit that victory. They destroy the life that God calls us to live, just as the palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday were destroyed to make these ashes. Most important, the ashes remind us that despite our sins, despite our deep-seeded selfishness, God hasn’t given up on us. Christ is our Redeemer! He claims us for His own. We still have a mission in His Kingdom; He still wants us to be His ambassadors.

Yes, we are marked with ashes, because we are sinners, but the mark is given in the sign of Christ’s cross, which won for us the grace of a new life in Christ. We are marked on our heads, because Christ wants us to go boldly into the world as His representatives. He is not ashamed of us; He wants our love. He is our Savior.

Lent is also a season devoted to penance. Within this time we are called to look inwardly and examine our relationship with the Lord. One may ask, how do we do this and what can we use to assist us in this task? Every year during Lent we commemorate the Passion of Christ by participating in the Stations of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross depict for us visible reflections on the final moments of Christ’s life. They also present us with something else; they present us with the path of humanity.

How? In each moment of the Passion, Jesus experiences complete human nature. He feels the pain of the crown of thorns, the agony of the scourging, the weight of the cross, the nails in His hands and feet, and He cries out His final words. The Stations of the Cross are moments we can use to reflect on our own humanity. They become for us concrete examples to help us in knowing ourselves better. In the condemnation and acceptance of the cross, we see the beginning of the struggles in life.

In His three falls, we see man’s weakness. When Veronica wipes the face of Jesus and the image of His Sacred countenance is left upon her veil, we receive the image of the face of Christ on our souls. In meeting His Mother, we too meet our Mother. As Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross, so the Church helps her children carry the cross of faith. As the women weep seeing Jesus in such pain, so too Jesus weeps as we struggle under the weight of the world.

As Jesus is stripped of His garments, we are stripped of our human dignity. As Jesus is nailed to the cross, with each pound of the nail, He receives humanity’s sins. As Jesus dies on the cross, humanity dies because of its lack of faith. As the lifeless body of Jesus is taken down from the cross, the lifeless souls of the fallen faithful wander the Earth. As Jesus is placed in the darkness of the sepulcher, humanity is overwhelmed in the darkness of evil. As the stone is rolled in place, humanity sees this as a final moment!

Peel Away A Mask

As we begin this Lenten season, Christ offers us the grace we need to make a fresh start in our friendship with Him. He offers us the strength we need to peel away whichever mask is blocking His love, a love which never wavers. Let’s accept this love and put it to work. Let’s not begin this Lent without committing to peeling away one of those masks, whether it be in our relationship with God, with our neighbor, or with ourselves.

If we promise to do our part this Lent, we can be sure Christ will do His!

This Lent we journey together along the way to Calvary. Over the next few weeks, we will reflect on the Stations of the Cross and experience the struggles of humanity.

May we make a strong amendment to change our lives, so that when the stone is rolled away, we may emerge into the glory of Easter as a new person radiant in the peace of the Risen Lord!