Next week, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on March 2. Year after year, we come to the Lenten season soon after the joyful Christmas season ends.
Each liturgical season brings an essential reminder for the whole of the Christian life. What aspects of the Christian life are focused on during Lent? Many of us would quickly answer: Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This answer is right on, but these three discipleship habits all call us to metanoia.
Metanoia
Metanoia is a Greek word meaning repent. The very first words of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel are “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15).
Metanoia does indeed mean repent, but it is also more than that. It is the realization that we have been living in a way that is inconsistent with the kingdom of God and that we need to change.
A fuller understanding of metanoia is conversion, which includes repentance and turning away from some wrong. In the Christian context, conversion is a radical reorientation of the whole life away from sin and evil, and toward God.
“Jesus calls to conversion” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1427). The Lenten season is a call from Jesus to reorient our lives once again — turning away from sin and toward God. The yearly Lenten reminder of our need for conversion strengthens us for our ongoing battle against concupiscence.
The effects of Original Sin disorder our desires and cause the inclination to sin. With these effects lingering within, we are continually called to “repent and believe in the Gospel.”
Jesus’ call to conversion continues to resound in our hearts. “This endeavor of conversion is not just a human work. It is the movement of a ‘contrite heart,’ drawn and moved by grace to respond, to the merciful love of God who loved us first” (CCC 1428). The Holy Spirit stirs in our hearts to inspire renewed commitments to prayer and repentance, fasting, and almsgiving. These Lenten discipleship habits lead to our ongoing conversion.
For prayer, evaluate what you are currently doing. Ask yourself if your prayer is feeding you spiritually. Would your prayer be renewed if you made a change this Lent? Is the Spirit prompting you to add something new or lengthen your daily prayer time?
A few options could include: Lectio divina with the daily readings, praying the Rosary, reading the Gospels to get to know Jesus better.
Lectio divina is a way of meditatively reading Scripture to allow the Lord to reveal a word or phrase that speaks to your heart.
Whatever form of prayer you choose or add, remember prayer is about relationship with God. St. John Paul II reminded us, “Prayer is in fact the recognition of our limits and our dependence: we come from God, we are of God, and to God we return.”
As part of our Lenten prayer, we are called to repent. This is an essential aspect of our Christian lives and ongoing conversion of heart.
To repent is to actively turn away from sin and to return to God. This can be part of one’s daily or weekly prayer — usually at the end of a day as part of a nightly examen.
Preparing for Reconciliation
These regular times of examination in our personal prayer prepare us for receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Receiving this Sacrament during Lent is a concrete act of responding to Jesus’ call to conversion. Pope Benedict XVI said, “Holiness grows with capacity for conversion, repentance, willingness to begin again, and above all with the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness.”
We are all sinners. There is no shame in that fact. Let us embrace this beautiful opportunity to grow in holiness and to encounter God’s mercy.
Fasting calls us to be detached from worldly things so as to make room for greater attachment to God. We live in a constant tension of being in this world, but at the same time preparing for eternal life. We need certain worldly things in our lives, but there are also many things that we can do without.
Most of us immediately think of fasting as giving up desserts or alcohol or some other food or drink. Is there something else you could give up that would create more space for God? For example, fast from a TV show and spend that time in prayer.
“Fasting is directed to two things, the deletion of sin, and the raising of the mind to heavenly things” (St. Thomas Aquinas). How will your fasting this Lent raise your mind to heavenly things?
Almsgiving is the practice of giving money or goods to the poor. It could also be the giving of your time. Almsgiving is the test of other Lenten practices — has our prayer, repentance, and fasting led to a conversion of heart?
C.S. Lewis said, “If conversion makes no improvements in a man’s outward actions then I think his conversion was largely imaginary.”
Our Lenten practices and ongoing conversion should lead us to be more generous and charitable with others. Almsgiving is both the fruit of our conversion and an act of ongoing conversion.
This Lenten season is a call from Jesus to metanoia — to repentance and conversion. May our hearts be renewed as we turn away from sin and turn toward God in new and deeper ways.
Sarah Pandl is a member of St. Christopher Parish in Verona. She works for The Evangelical Catholic and loves living in tune with the liturgical calendar of the Church.