beginning lent

On Wednesday February 17 we are going to start the Season of Lent. The Season of Lent is the first part of that long liturgical cycle we call the Easter Cycle. It is composed of the Season of Lent (40 days), the Paschal Triduum (3 days) and the Season of Easter (50 days). As you can see the Paschal Triduum is central to this cycle. In fact it is such a great feast that it would take us 40 days to prepare (Lent), 3 days to commemorate (Paschal Triduum) and 50 days to celebrate (Easter). It is important that we don’t take the seasons singly less we separate each of these from their context which is the Paschal Triduum, the 3 day commemoration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus.


We begin the Easter Cycle with Ash Wednesday (Feb. 17) – with the imposition of ashes and with fasting and abstinence. Last year, when we did the imposition of ashes, I have heard so many complaints because we demanded that people either go to mass or at least join the Liturgy of the Word before we could impose ashes on their foreheads. Some people seemed to just want the ashes and not the Word of God which must accompany every imposition. So they just want the priest or the minister to wait for them the whole day in the cathedral so that when they have the time and feel the urge to go, they can avail of it pronto and leave. But that is not allowed! One has to listen to the Word which calls us to repentance before one can be imposed with ashes, because it is the Word of God which calls us to repentance and not the ashes. The imposition of ashes is just a sign of our willingness to follow that Word, to be led by that Word during the season of Lent. If it’s only ashes that you want, I suggest that you go to your kitchen, scratch the soot from the backside of your frying pan with your index finger, bring the same index finger to your forehead and trace a cross on it, and say, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Or if you find that too long just say instead, “Repent and believe in the Good News.” Then that’s it. You don’t have to go to church, you will not experience the inconvenience of forming a long queue, and you won’t spend an extra centavo during that day in order to get here. Well I know you won’t do that. But that is exactly what you want, and that is exactly what you get, when you forego the Word of God and just opt for the ashes. You have to listen to God’s Word, to His invitation for you to go through the discipline of Lent, when you learn to forgo your wants and desires so that you can train yourself to become a better Christian, responsive to his Word.
Sometimes I don’t get it. Really! People signify their willingness to go through the rigors of Lent (with ashes) but they cannot wait. People announce to the public (what with ashes on their foreheads) their willingness to do penance and sacrifices but they don’t want to go through the “inconvenience” of the liturgy of the Word or the Mass.
When I passed by Jollibee last year during Ash Wednesday I even saw people with very big marks of ashes on their foreheads munching with gusto a hamburger and chicken legs! What’s the point?! You want the sign but you don’t want to go through what that sign signifies!? You insist on the sign but you don’t want to do what that sign demands in your fasting, in your abstinence?! I tell you, go home and do as I said - go to your kitchen, scratch the soot from the backside of your frying pan with your index finger, bring the same index finger to your forehead and trace a cross on your forehead, (bring also a mirror so that you can make intricate signs that would make it more unique and attractive, then go eat at Jollibee or McDo or Ted’s, Deco’s, or better still grill yourself a good steak), at least you would have done an act of charity to us priests and the other ministers by shortening the long, long queue with your absence (hahahaha)!
But there is one other point which I would like to point out. Have you ever asked yourself why you deprive yourself of meat and even food on that day? Have you asked yourself why you fast and abstain?
Fasting and abstinence is never done just for its own sake. The object of Lent is to intensify our response to the call of Christ which is to love, to think less of ourselves and think more of others, to be more selfless so that we can lessen our selfishness. In other words fasting and abstinence are done to make us more loving, more compassionate, more charitable, more Christian.
So here’s what we are going to do with our fasting and abstinence. When you come here to listen to God’s invitation to conversion and have your foreheads imposed with ashes we’re going to set up a booth outside the cathedral (and also on all Sundays of Lent) where you can get our Alkansiya sang Pamilya of the KABALAKA Project. The alkansiyas are small plastic water bottles emptied of their contents where you can place whatever amount you save for the day so that others may be helped through the parish’s own livelihood program. Because you are fasting, because you are abstaining that day, whatever you save from your marketing goes to the alkansiya sang pamilya. During the season train the kids and yourself to save not for yourself but for your poor neighbors, fellow parishioners who need to work so that they can earn the food they eat. So you eat less so that the poor among us can eat. That’s the spirit of Lent – you think of others more than you think of yourself – to sacrifice FOR others.
Then when you have filled up your alkansiya, bring it to church on a Sunday and during the offertory you can ask the youngest member of your family to offer it on the altar. With your alkansiya and with the collective effort of all Jareños, we can do a lot of good to others who have less in life, not because they are lazy, but because they have less opportunities than we have. Let us then do our share, and as the readings for Ash Wednesday would have us do: “rend your hearts not your garments,” flush out that natural inclination of your heart to think only of oneself, be more compassionate, be more concerned for others . . . magKABALAKA ka.