Lenten Notes

February 26, 2009

 

LENTEN SEASON

 

Lent is a time to prepare for Easter. Lent runs from Ash Wednesday to the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday exclusive. The season of Lent is to be distinguished from the Easter Triduum.

 

ASH WEDNESDAY: The rite for the blessing and distribution of ashes no longer takes place at the beginning of the Mass, but at the end of the liturgy of the Word. A new formula for the imposition of ashes has been suggested (taken from Mark 1:15) along with the option of using the ancient formula taken from Genesis 32:19. Please note that the rite for the blessing and distribution of ashes can take place as a liturgy of the Word outside the Mass.

 

MASS FORMULAS FOR SUNDAYS OF LENT: In all the three years of the liturgical cycle (A,B,C), the first two Sundays of Lent recount the temptation of Jesus in the desert (First Sunday) and the transfiguration of the mountain (Second Sunday). In these two episodes, we find the two faces of our participation in the paschal mystery. On the three other Sundays that precede Palm Sunday, the present Lectionary offers the possibility of three different, but complimentary, itineraries that lead toward the celebration of Easter.

 

The sacramental or baptismal itinerary (Cycle A): On the three Sundays, passages from John’s Gospel that have been connected, since the ancient times, with the baptismal scrutinizes are proclaimed: the Samaritan Woman, the healing of the man born blind, and the resurrection of Lazarus.

 

The Christocentric-paschal itinerary (Cycle B): The three Sundays present several passages from John in which we may contemplate, in an anticipatory way, the paschal mystery: Jesus is the real temple that will be destroyed - at his death - and rebuilt in his resurrection; Christ is the fulfillment of what was prefigured by the serpent raised by Moses in the desert, in Christ’s sorrowful, yet glorious, exaltation; Christ is the seed which, by dying and being sown in the ground, gives live.

 

The penitential itinerary (Cycle c): Cycle C is constructed so as to be catechesis on reconciliation, as well as an invitation to conversion. The three Sundays present texts from Luke that exalts the mercy of God: the parable of the fig tree that bears no fruit; the parable of the prodigal son; the story of the woman taken in adultery (according to some scholars, this story is actually part of the Lucan tradition)

 

Baptism and penance appear as the two constants on which the whole Lenten path to full reconciliation between God and humanity rests. Please note that the weekdays of Lent take up some of the themes of the Sundays.

 

HOLY WEEK begins with the Palm Sunday, which recalls the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, with the rite of the blessing of the palms and the proclamation of the Passion of the Lord during the Mass.

 

The Chrism Mass on the morning of Holy Thursday makes the end of Lent. This is a celebration with a value very particular to itself. Pope Paul VI made it a celebration of the ministerial priesthood, in which the priests renew, in the presence of their bishop, the tasks they took up at the time of ordination.

 

THE SACRED EASTER TRIDUUM

 

The Easter Triduum begins with the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, reaches its high point at the Easter Vigil, and ends with Vespers on Easter Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection. Taken as a whole, the Easter Triduum commemorates the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, both in its unity and its successive phases.

 

The evening celebration of Holy Thursday serves as a sort of “sacramental” prologue; the Triduum really consists of the entire day of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While the Triduum displays to us the reality of the paschal mystery in its historical dimension, the evening celebration of Holy Thursday does the same in its ritual dimension. It is the “sacramental” moment of the one paschal mystery.

 

The fundamental moments of the evening celebration of Holy Thursday are:

1.       The Liturgy of the Word (Exodus 12:18, 11:14;1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15);

2.       The washing of the feet;

3.       The liturgy of the Eucharist;

4.       The reservation of the Blessed Sacrament;

5.       The stripping of the altars (done in silence after the celebration).

 

The Lord’s Supper is a memorial of the Passover. Christ gave us his Passover in the Eucharist, which demands that we, for our part, serve one another in charity.

 

The celebration in honor of the Lord’s passion on GOOD FRIDAY afternoon is divided into 3 parts:

1.       The liturgy of the Word (Isaiah 52:13-53: 12; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1-19: 42);

2.       The adoration of the cross;

3.       Communion.

 

There is a linear movement in the Good Friday liturgy: the passion proclaimed (the liturgy of the Word), the passion invoked (the solemn intercessions), the passion venerated (the adoration of the cross), the passion communicated (communion).

 

Holy Saturday is the day of Christ in the tom and does not have a proper liturgy. The Church recommends that one FAST and spend time at the Lord’s tomb while awaiting his resurrection. The significance of this day is expresses by the texts for the Liturgy of the Hours.

 

At EASTER VIGIL, “the Church awaits Christ’s resurrection and celebrates it in the sacrament” (General Norms, n. 21). It has 4 parts:

 

1.       The celebration of light;

2.       The liturgy of the Word: the whole complex of readings invites us to consider the stages of the history of salvation, which is founded on the Passover of the Lord. The Lord’s Passover becomes the Church’s Passover, as Romans 6:3-11 proclaims (by means of baptism, we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ). Easter, therefore, an invitation to choose to live out one’s baptism.

3.       The celebration of baptism (if there are no baptism, there is a blessing of water and the renewal of baptismal promises);

4.       The celebration of the Eucharist.

 

The basic symbolism of the Easter Vigil is the “illuminated light” or the “night over which day has triumphed”, showing, by means of ritual signs, that the life of grace flows from the death of Christ.

 

The liturgy of Easter Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection celebrates the event of Easter as “the day of Christ the Lord”. The biblical readings contain the Easter kerygma and the call to the tasks that the new life in the Risen Christ entails. As the opening prayer says, to celebrate Easter means to “renew our lives by the Spirit that is within us.”

 

(Lent Materials from Diocese of Paranaque based on Presentation given by Bishop Ted Buhain during the Recollection for Vicariates and Parish Worship Ministry Representatives. )