Living out Lent from the power of Easter

Lent is still going. Are you tired yet? Have you cheated on vows to give up this or that luxury? Or perhaps to perform a charitable action or pray more often? The boxer Mike Tyson famously said everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the face. Every Catholic has a Lenten plan until tempted by an open bar at the reception or the need to “check something” on the phone, resulting in scrolling away that half hour of prayer.

Even if we have been good (even pretty good) at trying to fulfill our vows and promises during Lent, we can feel depleted and dreary. It’s easy to get down about the states of the world, our families, or even our own souls. Our internal dialogue can tempt us to despair: “What does it really matter that I’ve given up X, Y, or Z? I’ve been praying more and yet my kids’ behavior seems to be getting worse. Why am I even doing this? I’ve got nothing left!”

This sort of frustration can be hard to endure, but it is a profound opportunity. The reality is that if we haven’t been living out Lent in the power of Easter, we’re doing it wrong. For when we realize that we have nothing left in our own spiritual bank account, we can either simply give up or we can realize again that Catholic faith is about living from the grace that Christ won for us on the Cross—a treasury never ever in the red because it is infinite.

T. S. Eliot began his Four Quartets, “In my end is my beginning.” And that is how we should think about our Lenten path. All of Lent is leading toward a celebration of Easter as a Church and the triumph of the Resurrection in our own lives. But every step of the way is done because Christ’s Resurrection happened, and Easter’s power is present to us. Our beginning is made possible by the end. That is why we can keep going with thanksgiving and, indeed, joy. What we are aiming at is already mysteriously present to us and we can anticipate its fullness in our own lives.

This truth of anticipation is gloriously present in the liturgy of the Church. The old Latin rite’s offertory is representative of all the ancient Catholic rites in anticipating the fullness of the mystery at every Mass. Even though the offertory prayer is prayed before the bread and wine are consecrated and the mystery of transubstantiation has been accomplished, the prayer speaks as if this mystery had already been accomplished: “Receive, O Holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this spotless host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my countless sins, trespasses, and omissions; likewise for all here present, and for all faithful Christians, whether living or dead, that it may avail both me and them to salvation, unto life everlasting. Amen.”

We offer what is not a fitting sacrifice—bread and wine—knowing that the true sacrifice has been made already on Calvary and continues in Heaven. “For Christ has entered,” the author of Hebrews writes, “not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24). Christ receives that bread and wine and replaces it with His very self to offer the perfect sacrifice. Mass is the place where heaven and earth meet. And we are so confident that He will keep His word that we can speak of mere bread as the “spotless host” even before He transforms it.

As with this anticipation in the Mass, so too with the season of Lent. This is best seen in the Byzantine rite of the Church, which celebrates the beginning of Lent not on Ash Wednesday but two days before, known as Clean Monday. And that liturgical day itself starts the evening before. In the Eastern calendars, this Sunday is officially listed as “The Expulsion of Adam from the Paradise of Bliss” but is commonly called “Forgiveness Sunday” from the evening service. This “Forgiveness Vespers” service begins with priests and deacons in brightly colored vestments and altar cloths. But, sometime in the middle, a shift is made. Darker vestments and altar cloths are traded in, and the music begins to take on a more serious and somber tone. There is an announcement of the beginning of Lent: “Turn not away Thy face from Thy child, for I am afflicted! Hear me speedily! Draw near unto my soul and deliver it!” So far, so penitential.

But this service concludes with a ritual known as the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, at which all present bow before each other, ask for forgiveness, and exchange a holy kiss (the exact method is different from parish to parish). This ritual of forgiveness is meant to demonstrate the new and reconciled form of life that came from Christ’s own Redemption. We who were forgiven and restored by Christ’s Death and Resurrection are now capable of forgiving others, receiving their forgiveness, and living in harmony with them. And, significantly, this ceremony beginning Lent is done as the choir sings the Paschal hymns.

Lent begins with Easter. In our end is truly our beginning!

Even if we didn’t begin Lent with this in mind, even if we started under our own willpower, we can always start again. For we know that Christ has conquered once and for all time. It is by His tremendous presence in us through Baptism and by His gifts of every kind of grace that we can indeed make it the rest of the way. We may have “nothing left” in us, but Christ has enough and more to give us the power to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and make it to the Resurrection.

Don’t lose heart! As we journey toward Christ’s Resurrection liturgically, its power is already present and urges us on.

(This article first appeared in The Catholic Servant and appears with gracious permission.)