Liturgy: The Church's Spirituality
Bruce T. Morrill, S.J.

THE EVOLUTION OF LENT: A SHORT LITURGICAL HISTORY

If one were to ask a sampling of Roman Catholics what characterizes Lent as a liturgical season, they might well identify the two days that mark key beginnings in the forty day process: Ash Wednesday, inaugurating the entire Lenten Season, and Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. These two days feature liturgical symbols—ashes pressed to foreheads, palms held by hand—which have become beloved traditions for generations of the faithful. The popularity of these symbols may well be due in no small part to the directness of their messages, as well as the concrete, uncomplicated quality of each.

Ashes and Palms

With the ashes comes the familiar reminder, "Remember that you are dust and that to dust you will return," or the exhortation, "Turn away from sin and believe the Gospel." While in the United States the typical practice is to impose the ashes on the forehead, in some countries the ashes are applied to the crown of the head. The result of the ritual action is stark and lasts throughout the day, bluntly reminding us that death (along with its colleague, sin) is both humanly inevitable and divinely redeemed. Some five and a half weeks later the faithful eagerly pick up slips or entire fistfuls of long, fragrant palms. Often standing in the church yard or entryway, they proudly hold the fronds high for blessing, sometimes weave them into cruciform patterns during the proclamation of the Gospel story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and wave them for the ancient processional hymn, "All Glory, Laud, and Honor." Many a Roman Catholic pastor will tell you that both the "turn out" for receiving ashes and the attendance at Palm Sunday liturgies well exceed the usual numbers at Sunday Mass. With the report may come the commentary, "Catholics will always turn up if you’re giving something away."

The Lenten Season developed over the centuries

Many Roman Catholics might be surprised, however, to learn that the establishment of Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday each postdate the development of the annual Easter Feast by several centuries. The Season of Lent, in fact, finds it origins in relation to two other feasts of the Church, The Baptism of the Lord (Epiphany, in some places) and Easter Sunday. By the turn of the fourth century the church in Egypt was practicing a forty day fast, which followed upon Epiphany and commemorated Jesus’ fasting in the desert for forty days after his baptism. The Fathers of the Church, citing Matthew 6:1-18, regularly reminded the faithful that fasting only made Christian sense in conjunction with prayer and almsgiving. While the Egyptian practice did not spread into the wider church per se, it contributed mightily to the eventual rationale for the length of the Lent, as well as its purpose.

Lent found its timing in the universal church in relation to Easter Sunday. While at its origins in the second century Easter was preceded by two days of solemn fasting (a simple extension of the customary fast for any Friday), by the fourth century the preparation extended first to three weeks and then forty days. In Rome six weeks of fasting began with the First Sunday of Lent, exactly forty days prior to the beginning of the Easter Triduum (i.e., Holy Thursday night). This century also witnessed the full flourishing of the extended catechumenate (the ancient roots of today’s RCIA), with Lent constituting the period of final, intense preparation for initiation at the Easter Vigil. In addition, another sacramental-liturgical process emerged in conjunction with the Lenten Season. Those believers who had seriously, publicly sinned were excluded from communion and directed to do penance at the beginning of Lent, while all the bishops and faithful supported the penitents with rituals of healing and the promise of prayers throughout the season. The bishop received the penitents back to communion on Holy Thursday.

While the practice of this Order of Penitents declined in subsequent centuries, the call for all the faithful to reform their lives annually through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving took hold across the Church. During the sixth century in the West, the season’s start shifted back to the Wednesday before the First Sunday of Lent, so as to allow for forty actual days of fasting (since fasting on Sunday, the Day of the Lord, would be an affront to the glory of his resurrection). In Europe the traditional antiphon calling for a spiritual donning of sackcloth and ashes took the concrete form of actually imposing ashes on the head. Not until the thirteenth century did the Pope adopt the practice. Meanwhile, the liturgical custom of celebrating the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem on the Sunday before Easter emerged in that ancient city from the fourth century. Clear documentation of the practice, as the start of Holy Week, only appears in the ninth century in the West.

The Celebration of the Triduum

While continuing the beloved customs of ashes and palms, the renewed Season of Lent points us forward to the most important liturgies of the entire Church Year, namely, the nightly celebrations of the Easter Triduum, culminating in the Easter Vigil. In this liturgical perspective, ashes remind us to give generously to the poor as we abstain from food and drink, while also calling us to celebrate penance services to pray for one another in our conversion, once again, to the grace we received in baptism. These two features—baptismal and penitential—find their fullest sacramental expression in the elect as they move toward the celebration of the Easter sacraments. The renewal of Lent in the Roman Catholic Church will realize its fulfillment when as many or more Catholics "turn out" for the Easter Vigil as flock to their churches for ashes and palms.

Jesuit Father Bruce Morrill teaches in the Department of Theology at Boston College.