Lent is perplexing to so many. Just look at the confusion on so many people's faces as they approach the priest giving ashes. They come to church to begin something but I sense many people have not a clue what to do, why and to what end. For example: ask the "average Catholic" what it means to pray, fast and give alms. Duck, you may get a robust answer, but you may get something that is way underwhelming, even moralist and abstract. Most answers you garner will say not be too consistent with Scripture and the Liturgy; moreover, it will have nothing to do with one's humanity. Let's deal with fasting. In today's reading from the Prophet Isaiah (58:1-9) we hear from God about what he expects of fasting:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
The prayer at Mass brings together a central point of Lent: may we receive the grace to do the works of penitence we started and "may they be accomplished in sincerity of heart."
Consider what John Paul II said in 1979 about the interior being, the point of penance:
Penance is not just an effort, a weight, but it is also a joy. Sometimes it is a great joy of the human spirit, a delight that other sources cannot bring forth. Contemporary man seems to have lost, to some extent, the flavor of this joy. He has also lost the deep sense of that spiritual effort which makes it possible to find oneself again in the whole truth of one's interior being. Our civilization, especially in the West, closely connected as it is with the development of science and technology, catches a glimpse of the need for intellectual and physical effort. But he has lost the sense of the effort of the spirit, the fruit of which is man seen in his inner self. The whole period of Lent, since it is a preparation for Easter, is a systematic call to this joy that comes from the effort of patiently finding oneself again. Let no one be afraid to undertake this effort.
Pope John Paul II
Lenten Message 1979
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