Lenten Joy by Sr Ann Catherine

We tend to think of Lent as the miserable period in the Church’s calendar, and understandably: we begin the season by wearing ashes in remembrance of our own mortality and end it by retracing the steps of Jesus to the Cross; the Church encourages us to reflect on our distance from God and to address the root causes of our sinfulness by the uncomfortable means of prayer, fasting and almsgiving; we sing more restrained music at Mass and the priest wears sombre purple. But this is very far from being the whole story: the breviary talks of “this joyful season” of Lent, and, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, nature seems to confirm this: signs of new life are everywhere as the darkness of winter gradually gives way to the radiance of spring.Here are some challenging but wise words about how to find joy in our observance of Lent, to see it not as a burden but as a gift, from a great spiritual writer of the last century:“Humility and joy go together. If we think of the sacrifices we make as something that we are doing, of ourselves, we are going in the wrong direction, and in the effort to live up to the plan we have set ourselves, we may well become thin-lipped, gloomy, hard. St Francis, when he gave up everything to God, even his clothes, burst into song; because his nakedness was not a feat of human endurance, but a liberation of spirit, a falling into the arms of God”.(From the Son’s Course, by Gerald Vann, OP)This is a cause of real joy, especially for those of us who habitually fail to stick to the good resolutions we make on Ash Wednesday. The point of all our penance, our prayer, fasting and almsgiving, is not to earn God’s favour, but to remind ourselves of our need for God’s healing, our longing, to fall, like St Francis, into the arms of the God who is our heart’s desire. And that is shown up particularly clearly when we fall short of our self-imposed goals, because it is then that we can ask God to pick us up again. In his mercy, he always will. An ancient Lenten hymn puts it very well: The day is come, the accepted dayWhen grace like nature flowers anewTrained by thine arm a surer wayRejoice we in our spring time too. Have a holy – and a happy – Lent!