From Dust Unto Dust, 2004

The great season of preparation for Lent began on Septuagesima Sunday, which was celebrated this year on February 8. As is the case with many of the Uniat rites of the East, the traditional calendar of the Roman Rite has a period of preparation prior to the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Such a period of preparation has to be taken seriously. For above and beyond all of the tragic but necessary polemics of this moment in Church history, we have to remember that it will be impossible to build up the Social Kingship of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in this passing vale of tears if we do not attempt to build up His Kingship and Lordship over us in every aspect of our daily lives.

It was the traditional practice of the Church prior to the 1960s to impose under penalty of sin a number of penances. The Ember Days, replete with fasting and abstinence from meat, were observed with a spirit of solemnity. The amount of meat and dairy products that could be consumed had to be carefully measured. Although many traditional Catholics today voluntarily observe these practices, their abandonment in the lives of most Catholics has been disastrous for the good of souls and for the making of a solemn, penitential Lent in preparation for a joyous celebration of the fifty days of Easter.

That is, human beings are by their fallen natures sedentary and slothful. A life of ready luxury and physical pampering appeals to our desire to create a Paradise on earth. It is thus necessary for fallen man to be coerced into renouncing luxury and an inordinate concern for bodily comfort and pleasures by means of penances imposed by the power of the disciplinary authority of the Church. Human nature being what it is, you see, it is very necessary to mandate certain penances under penalty of sin as the first step in the direction of creating motives of love to deepen our desire to embrace our daily crosses and to be conscious at all times of our need to do penance and to live penitentially in reparation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. The Church used to understand that the exercise of her disciplinary powers was an important, indeed, indispensable, means to help point earthbound souls in the direction of the pursuit of eternal glories.

The season of Lent is supposed to unite us more fully to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer by spending forty days in a figurative desert of prayer, penance, self-denial, and alms-giving. None of us can possibly imagine what the least one of our venial sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and his fearful death on the wood of the Holy Cross. No suffering we can endure, including that of the horrors of the postconciliar era, is the equal of what one of those least venial sins did to Our Lord. It is thus very important for us to use the special season of penance that is Lent to become so detached from our sins and sinful inclinations that even the thought of sinning will be as repugnant to us as it was to the saints. Each of us has the obligation to try to scale the heights of sanctity by cooperating with the graces won for us by Our Lord on Calvary so as to have the highest place possible in Heaven next to that of the Blessed Mother herself.

To this end, therefore, it is a salutary thing to embrace the traditional penitential practices of the past even though they are no longer imposed under penalty of sin by the Church. Such practices remind Catholics of the need to withdraw from the activities of this passing world as much as our states in life will permit. Indeed, Catholics used to understand that all unnecessary and mirthful activities are inappropriate in Lent, actually serving to detract from its penitential character and from the way in which the Easter season of joy is to be distinguished from its forty days of prayer and penance. In contemporary terms this means that as many legitimate pleasures (the quality and quantity of food, the partaking of moral means of entertainment, the watching and attending of sporting activities, unnecessary shopping, idle conversations, among many others) as possible should be avoided so as to discipline the soul and to demonstrate to God our desire to seek Him above all things in this passing vale of tears. Our voluntary renunciation of these legitimate pleasures and activities during Lent will make them more after Easter, to say nothing of reminding us that we strive after heavenly glories that far surpass anything we might enjoy as members of the Church Militant.

The forty days of Lent remind us also that life involves repetitious cycles. God led the Hebrews in circles in the desert for forty years to test their fidelity and gratitude to Him. In like manner, the people of the New and Eternal Covenant, which has superceded the Mosaic Covenant, are led in circles over and over again to test our fidelity and gratitude for all that we have been given, starting with the gift of the true Faith we received in the baptismal font. Like the Jews before us, we can grow weary as we journey through the desert of life to the Promised Land, although, unlike the Jews, we know that the Promised Land is Heaven, which has been made possible for us by the immolation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man to the Father in Spirit and in Truth made on the Tree of Life that is the Holy Cross. Thus, we need to have periods of time in which our interior lives of prayer and penance are fortified and renewed so that we can continue the desert journey of life by being prepared at all times for the moment of our own Particular Judgments.

Six weeks is a long period, just about one-ninth of a year. It is not possible on our own power to keep a good Lent for that period of time. So many Lenten resolutions begin with such conviction on Ash Wednesday and dissipate gradually over the course of the ensuing weeks. A really good Lent, which is supposed to be intensified during Passion and Holy Weeks, is only possible by the graces won for us on Calvary by Our Lord and by the help we receive from His Blessed Mother, who stood so valiantly at the foot of the Cross as her Immaculate Heart was pierced with the sword of sorrow that Simeon had prophesied at her Purification she would feel.

A Catholic devoted to the living liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite knows full well how to make a good Lent. Knowing is one thing, doing is another. And, practically speaking, a Catholic who wants to attend the Traditional Latin Mass on a daily basis may be unable to do so, which itself is a penance that can be offered up. Those of us who are totally consecrated to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, obviously, give her the fruit of whatever merits we earn from our prayers and penances. Those Catholics, though, who are blessed to have the Mass of tradition available to them on a daily basis should avail themselves of this great treasure as the first and most important part of a well-lived Lent.

Secondly, we are called to be more consistent in our spending time in prayer before Our Eucharistic King. One does not need to attend or be oblivious to the harm of the Novus Ordo to avail himself of Our Lord's Real Presence in diocesan churches and chapels of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. There are more than a handful of wonderful priests in diocesan assignments who have great zeal for the sanctification and salvation of souls, men who have priestly hearts and who spend a great deal of time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament themselves. Some are privately devoted to the Traditional Mass. Others might be hostile for one reason or another. However, they do genuinely believe in the sacrificial nature of the Mass and in the hierarchical nature of the priesthood.

Apart from the worship we give God and the graces received from our time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, we might discover that Our Lord will give us an opportunity in a diocesan church where the Traditional Mass is not celebrated to evangelize in its behalf. Someone might approach us as we are entering our leaving to ask us who we are and why they don't see us in that church. We could use that opportunity to explain the importance of the Traditional Mass, inviting them to discover its inherent glories. Just a thought. Obviously, it is preferable to find a church were the Traditional Mass alone is offered (no explanations need be given to children about that table in the middle). However, the situation we live in is what it is. Spending time with Our Lord's Real Presence is an important part of Lent. Keeping him company in a place where He is profaned in the context of the Mass is a reminder of what our sins did to Him as He offered the first Mass on Golgotha.

Thirdly, our devotion to the Mother of God must be intensified during Lent. Many Catholics pray all fifteen decades of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary (it is sometimes the case that I can't count beyond fifteen, thank you) each day during Lent. Our Lady remained close to her Divine Son even after He left her side to begin His Public Ministry. She is close to us. We must rely tenderly on her maternal care for us, recognizing that she is the Co-Redemptrix, as Pope Leo XIII taught in his 1894 encyclical letter on the Rosary, and the Mediatrix of all graces. Our Lady gave birth to Our Lord painlessly in Bethlehem, placing Him in the wood of the manger. She gave birth to us in great pain and sorrow at the foot of the Cross as adopted sons and daughters of God, watching our sins place her Divine Son on the wood of the Holy Cross, which has become for us the true manger from which we are fed His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in Holy Communion. We need Our Blessed Mother's help and protection to make a good Lent. Our very visible wearing of the Miraculous Medal reminds others of the fact that they, too, have a Mother who stands ready to help them.

Fourthly, we should endeavor to make the Way of the Cross as frequently as we can. So many people do so daily during Lent. There are wonderful meditations to use without relying on recent innovations and improvisations. The meditations of Saint Alphonsus Liguouri are among the best. The late John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote a very powerful set of meditations, which, amazingly, were used last year by the Holy Father on Good Friday in the Coliseum in Rome. There are others, including Stations of the Cross that have pro-life themes. That having been noted, we can gain the plenary indulgence for making the Stations of the Cross if we simply move from station to station while meditating at each station and saying the prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father (as well as getting to confession within eight days and being detached from all of our sins). The discipline of making the Stations, especially on a daily basis, will help to unite us with the sense of fatigue and exhaustion we imposed upon Our Lord during His Passion and Death.

Fifthly, there is fasting. This was alluded to earlier in connection with the general sense we must have of abstaining from food and from other legitimate pleasures we enjoy so much. Self-denial and mortification are traditional Catholic practices that simply can't be replaced merely by doing "something positive," as so many postconciliar apologists urge upon Catholics. What these people don't understand is that fasting is a positive decision made on the part of a Catholic to discipline his soul and prove his love for the Blessed Trinity. Indeed, the prayers of the Traditional Latin Mass throughout the year-but especially during Lent-stress our need for external acts of penance as a means of proving our love for God and our detestation of sin. We should embrace such acts of penance with a ready spirit.

There are many other aspects to a good Lent, including alms-giving. However, I want to spend a few moments discussing the importance of the Sacrament of Penance.

Our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Penance following His Resurrection. He gave the Apostles the power to forgive and to retain sins. How Protestants get around that passage in the Gospel of Saint John is truly mystifying. We know that we have to confess the kind and the number of each mortal sin, if any, God forbid, committed since our last confession. The normal way for the forgiveness of all mortal sins committed after baptism is auricular confession. We must go on our knees to an alter Christus in the confessional, which can be viewed as the hospital of Divine Mercy. Although a sinner himself, a priest has been given the power by virtue of his ordination to be an administrator of the sacraments, including the Sacrament of Penance. Acting in the person of Christ the High Priest, a priest must ascertain the completeness and sincerity of a penitent's confession, assuring himself that the sinner is committed at that moment of the confession to amend his life and to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. He says the words of absolution (Ego te absolvo. . . .), restoring a soul once more to a state of sanctifying grace. Auricular confession demonstrates our humility by being willing to prostrate ourselves to make a good confession before one who has been appointed by Our Lord Himself to take good care of our souls unto eternity. It is a great grace to be able to hear, as the nature of man requires, that we are forgiven from one who has authority from on high to forgive.

A wide array of saints have ratified over the years the wisdom of Holy Mother Church's desire that we go to confession regularly. Even a devotional confession, wherein we confess venial sins, shows our desire to make a good examination of conscience in order to receive the supernatural helps provided in the Sacrament of Penance to soar to the heights of spiritual perfection. Some saints went to confession every day of their lives, especially as they became more conscious of the horror of venial sins in their own lives, no less what they did, as I noted earlier, to Our Lord in His Passion and Death. The devotional confessions we make in Lent are particularly pleasing to Our Lord as they are demonstrative of our desire to obey His law, observe the precepts of the Church, and strive to cooperate more fully with the graces sent to us to sanctify every moment of our lives, especially to embrace the sufferings that come our way.

It is important to remember in this regard that the penance we are given by a priest to perform as the condition of our absolution is only part of the life of penance we are called to in this life, most particularly in Lent. As Sister Lucia of Fatima noted a few years ago, most of the time the penances we are asked to bear are nothing extraordinary. They might involve getting up out of bed when we would prefer to go back to sleep. They might be as simple as just fulfilling the tasks and duties of our states-in-life. They could be as ordinary as seeing in a stubbed toe an opportunity to thank Our Lady for the chance to once again be reminded of all of the sufferings of her Divine Son. A good confession, therefore, can cleanse us so much that we are more willing, as one of the prayers in the Miraculous Medal Novena reminds us, to recover by penance what we have lost by sin, thus enlightening our intellects and strengthening our wills to be ready for more crosses and to bear a witness to Our Lord that is more consistent in zeal for souls founded in truth and authentic charity.

Indeed, charity itself is such an essential part of Lent. We are sinners. We are the beneficiaries of a mercy we do not merit, from Our Lord Himself, flowing so freely from His Sacred Heart through His Wounded Side. As beneficiaries of Divine Mercy, we have the obligation to bestow that mercy upon those who transgress against us. Et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimmitimus debitoribus nostris. ("And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We must forgive those who sin against us." This is an imperative. There is no exception. As the late Father John Hardon noted in a conference in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in 1997, "God permits us to sin so that we can forgive each other. Let me repeat myself: God permits us to sin so that we can forgive each other."

Fallen human nature inclines to nurture hurts, both real and imagined. We want others to forgive us when we hurt them while at the same time we might tend to be niggardly in the forgiveness we offer those who hurt us. However, Our Lord is very clear: "My Father will treat you in exactly the same way if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." This does not mean that we have to restore a person to friendship or that we cannot seek justice be administered to one responsible for a particularly heinous act. This does mean, though, that we must forgive as we are forgiven, making it a point to pray for a person who has hurt us. Our Lord really did mean it when He taught us in the Sermon on the Mount to pray for our enemies. Even though we can offer forgiveness to another, we might never be fully reconciled to that person until the Last Day, if, that is, each of us dies in a state of sanctifying grace. No disagreement or quarrel in this life will matter to the elect who have forgiven as they have been forgiven. Conversely, those who have persisted in mercilessness and hardness of heart will be tortured by their unwillingness to forgive for all eternity in Hell.

It was Saint Stephen's prayers from eternity that converted Saul of Tarsus. It was the prayers of hundreds of thousands of Catholics that brought about the conversions of Bernard Nathanson and Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe. A fundamental exercise of charity, which wills the good of others (the ultimate expression of which is the conversion of all people to the true Faith and the salvation of their souls), is to pray for those who misunderstand us, reject us, refuse to communicate with us, or acknowledge us, or who go out of their way to attack us. Once again, none of this matters if we and they die in states of grace.

Consider the words of Father Edward Leen, found in his masterful In the Likeness of Christ:

"With the exception of that comparatively small number of heroic men and women who have, from the dawn of consciousness, pursued unfalteringly the path of perfection, Christians as a rule belie the promises of their baptism and continually present obstacles to the increase of divine grace in their souls. Differing in many respects, we are alike in this, that we are all sinners, and that we have not only once, but perhaps several times in our lives disappointed God."

"In other words, it is the law of things as they actually are that we must continually suffer from others; it is the condition of our being that we shall be the victims of others' abuse of their free wills; it belongs to our position that our desires and inclinations should be continually thwarted and that we should be at the mercy of circumstances. And it is our duty to bear that without resentment and without rebellion. To rebel is to assert practically that such things are not our due, that they do not belong to our position. It is to refuse to recognize that we are fallen members of a fallen race. The moment we feel resentment at anything painful that happens to us through the activity of MEN OR THINGS, at that moment we are resentful against God's Providence. We are in this really protesting against His eternal determination to create free beings; for these sufferings which we endure are a consequence of the carrying into effect of that free determination. If we expect or look for a mode of existence in which we shall not endure harshness, unkindness, misunderstanding and injustice, we are actually rebelling against God's Providence, we are claiming a position that does not belong to us as creatures. This is to sin against humility. It is pride.

"It is true that He cannot but look with hatred on sin, and that He cannot love us in so far as we are sinners. But He can, and does loves us for any little good that remains in us, and above all He loves us for what we can possibly become if we respond to the pressing appeals of His grace. He does not love sin, but He does love those who are sinners, and He never shrinks from contact with us, or from our contact with Him, as long as there remains the possibility of our rejecting that which is displeasing in His sight. . . . And not the very gravest of our infidelities inflict so cruel a wound on that Heart, as is that wound that is inflected on It when we doubt of Its tenderness and mercy."

Our Lord is so merciful to us erring sinners. He gives us just the number of years of life to make it possible for us to "get it" insofar as the interior life of the soul is concerned. No matter how well we might have lived the Lents of the past, we are called to do better and better with each passing year. Remembering that we are dust and to dust we shall go, therefore, we pray to Our Lady to help us, whose bodies are destined temporarily for the corruption of the grave until the General Resurrection of the dead on the Last Day, to be serious about this particular Lent, aiming for the glories of an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise that await us if we remain faithful to end.