February 19, 2010
The Christian Journey
How Lenten practices developed over the centuries
BY FATHER JIM SAUER
Lent in the Roman Church originally began as a one-week preparation for catechumens who were baptized, confirmed, and shared in the Eucharist during the Easter Vigil. While St. Hippolytus provides us with the earliest information (215 A.D.), he may have been describing a custom pre-dating him by 50 to 100 years. The early persecuted Church did not keep precise records or they are now lost.
This one-week Lent gradually evolved into a three-week Lent. By the fourth century, Rome observed a 40-day Lent because St. Athanasius inaugurated this Roman custom into his Diocese of Alexandria, Egypt, in 340 A.D. The 40-day Lenten fast quickly spread throughout the entire Western Church; however, it was still associated with preparing catechumens for initiation during the Easter Vigil.
Simultaneously with St. Athanasius’ institution of the 40-day Lenten fast prior to Easter, another custom was already observed in Egypt called the 40-day “penitential fast,” beginning after the Feast of Epiphany paralleling Jesus’ journey into the desert following his baptism. The emphasis was on Jesus’ ascetical practices in the desert where he neither ate nor drank for 40 days. This penitential fast ended in the absolution of public sinners within the Church, which happened “once-in-a-lifetime” in the early Church. (The only mortal sins requiring public confession before the bishop with entrance into the “Order of Penitents” for moral conversion were 1) denial of one’s faith, 2) murder and 3) adultery).
This post-Epiphany penitential 40-day fast spread to Irish monasteries, where it became a “100-day fast” between Epiphany and Easter. Since baptisms are celebrated only in parish churches unless permitted by the local bishop, the monks revised these 100-days into a strict penitential season, which was transported back to mainland Europe through Irish missionary-monks.
The Roman Church also publicly ritualized the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the same three mortal sins. Public sinners entered the Order of Penitents for as long as three years to test their re-conversion to Christ. Public sinners wore sackcloth and ashes; did not participate in Sunday worship; were re-catechized in the Gospels and the Creed; did acts of penance and charitable works. When their catechists discerned their sincerity in their new conversion to Christ, the Bishop reconciled them publicly during the Holy Thursday Liturgy so they could take part in the Sacred Triduum (according to Pope Innocent I in 416 A.D.).
An overlapping of two different customs gradually occurred in the Church — the Lenten preparation of catechumens for Christian Initiation during the Easter Vigil (originally one-week, then 3-weeks, and finally 40-days) and the “penitential fast” preparing to reconcile public sinners with the Church.
As Christianity became the established religion in the Roman Empire, entire households were already baptized Christians. This led to fewer adults being received into the Church and to the extinction of the Catechumenate. (Benedictine monasteries preserved the catechumenate to form their new members — postulancy, novitiate, juniorate and full membership through final values emphasizing living the Gospel, communal prayer, common living, and conversion of life. I invite our local Benedictine monks and sisters to help our parish ministers understand the meaning of discerning one’s growth in Christ and the community, which forms the heart of the RCIA).
Unfortunately, what happened in the Church’s observance of Lent is that the central connection of Lent as preparing catechumens for initiation into the Church — as well as the public liturgical rituals reinforcing this — died out not only in the Church’s public liturgy, but also in the spirituality of Catholics. No longer do we connect our Lenten practices to our baptismal renewal in Christ that goes beyond Lent, but Lent becomes a 40-day endurance test.