By Msgr. Owen F. Campion

Lent: Discipline for the Soul

If Catholics associate anything formally ascetical with the Church, it is Lent. Just mention the word, even to a Catholic who rarely darkens the door of the parish church, and there is an immediate connection. It has been this way for a long time. Even in England when the Reformation was applying the most draconian measures to end the old ways, Lenten fasting remained intact by no less than a Parliamentary order. Lent was seen that much as basic to Christian living.

This can be an advantage for pastors. Catholics at least have some intellectual background, and spiritual sense, as priests speak to them about Lent.

The history of Lent is so old. Two days of the week have stood as very important in the pursuit of Christian holiness since the time of the Apostles themselves. First among these days of course was Sunday, the day of the week when the Lord triumphantly rose from the dead.

Friday was the other day, the day of the week upon which Jesus died on the cross. Early in Christian history Fridays became days of fasting. Then there was a strict fast from Good Friday to Easter. Some Christians ate or drank nothing during this time. This practice was called ''Passion Fast,'' to recall Calvary. This practice found its roots in a New Testament passage, Mark 2:20, that when the bridegroom would be taken away, there would be reason to fast.

Fasting as Centuries Passed

The 13th and 14th chapters of the Acts of the Apostles reveal that fasting was much a part of the lives of the first Christians, gathered as they were around the Apostles.

As centuries passed, a longer time of fasting prior to Easter came into being. Interestingly, Sundays never were included in these periods of fasting. Inspiring this development was the story, also from the Gospels, of the forty days when Christ fasted and prayed in the desert.

Forty days of fasting before Easter became the virtual norm as early as the third century A.D. St. Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexandria in the fourth century A.D., wrote that these forty days of fasting were observed everywhere without exception in Christendom.

By the seventh century, fasting had come to mean refraining from eating not only meat but also any byproducts of living warm-blooded animals, such as eggs, milk and cheese.

This rather harsh style of fasting eventually was seen as such an ideal that it went into the rules of some religious congregations. Eastern Christians still often keep their fast by following this ideal.

Then, some interpreted fasting, even in the early centuries, as consuming only one full meal each day.

As the many centuries of the Christian era have passed, habits, traditions and even Church regulations have changed considerably. Despite all the changes, and frankly regardless of the reduced levels of pious activity among many, fasting still is an important part of Lent.

Urging fasting can be made on the basis of history, but these arguments might not be that convincing for everyone.

Maybe the best pastoral technique is to begin with the reason for, and result of, fasting. Since it is deliberate, a person choosing to fast obviously must wish to acknowledge God and recognizes the place of self, and all humanity, within a personal relationship with God.

Fasting admits sinfulness and human limitation. Essential in this admission is the notion of the supremacy of God and the obligation to obey God.

Catechesis helps by broadening and deepening this sense of acknowledgement. Start with the Scriptures. Going back to fasting in the earliest biblical accounts, it had several purposes.

Discipline

One purpose in Lent is discipline. It is the same as when athletes discipline themselves. The point surely is restraint when it comes to eating, but it more importantly is a means to governing self-instincts and preferences so as to achieve a goal perceived as desirable, namely a closer union with God and a holy life.

Being disciplined in other ways, such as the rejection of temptation, or the toughening of the will to be holy, also is indispensable in the process of becoming holy.

We humans can be strong, if we wish to be strong. We are not helpless. While the blood of Christ freely shed on the cross redeems us, and while the Spirit of God, through Christ, guides, heals, and strengthens us, we individually in a significant way walk along our own way to eternal life. We reach eternal life by following Christ, not by being carried kicking and screaming to the bosom of the Father.

Original Sin is no far-fetched musing from the Scholastic theologians. It is a doctrine of our Church. It also explains our sense of helplessness on the one hand, and on the other, our sense of our own supremacy. We need to remind ourselves of who and what we really are.

Another important lesson learned from fasting is that earthly food, and by extension earthly things, are not the be- all and end-all. Just as Jesus reminded Pilate, if we are Christians, our kingdom is not of this world.

Our True Home

Our true home is in the next life. This is a point maybe not mentioned enough in programs of catechesis, or if mentioned, somehow set aside either as quite dreamy in the face of the real world, irrelevant, or concerning events that are long in the future.

Actually, nothing is more fundamental to understanding salvation, and to understanding Jesus as the bearer of salvation in God, than a realization, and acceptance, of the ancient Christian teaching that there is a life after earthly death.

Finally, fasting makes real our determination to make reparation for our failures and sins, and as we wish, to make reparations for the sins of others. Very often, sin takes the form of excess: in grasping things, in preferring self over others, in sex, and in estimates of self. Voluntary fasting and self-denial balance the equation.

Just as fasting has been ancient in the life of the Church, and indispensable to Lent, so also has been the use of Lent as a time especially for the baptism of converts.

Liturgical reform hardly began with the Second Vatican Council, or the various rulings by Pope Paul VI to put the Council's sense of the liturgy into effect. The mood of liturgical reform began decades before the 1960s, and Pope Pius XII was one of its most important figures.

It was he who reformed the Easter Vigil, making obvious again its rich involvement with Sacramental baptism and consequent entry into the Mystical Body of the Risen Lord. No liturgical setting in the majestic treasury of the Church's public worship outdoes the Easter Vigil in its drama and its profound impart of the working of the divine within the human soul.

The Easter Vigil, splendid as it is, and climax as it is, does not stand alone in Lent's connection with baptism. The RCIA has important moments throughout Lent, leading as it does to the Easter Vigil and to baptism.

However, the vast majority of Catholics will not be part of any RCIA program, nor will they be baptized in the Easter Vigil. They were baptized years ago. They have been part of the life of the Church.

Still, they are being purified. Still they are coping with Original Sin and its effects. In addition, actual sin is so deep and universal within the human experience that, while its ultimate deadly consequences can be washed away if not in baptism then in Sacramental confession and in an earnest resolve to repent, it lingers long in its scars, weaknesses, and tendencies. Part of our spiritual self-realization is the knowledge that we sin.

Renewed determination to be with God in prayer is another essential component of Lent. Many Catholics participate more in this aspect of Lent than in fasting. Look at the increased numbers of people attending weekday parish Masses during Lent.

In any case, prayer is a part of Lent, and many Catholics take pains to avail themselves of opportunities for private and communal prayer during Lent. Pastors know this and accommodate it.

Traditionally, private devotions have been very popular during Lent; among these is the Stations of the Cross. Priests have many resources available to them in organizing this particular devotion. Many of these resources furnish sound and reflective material for the Stations, for use either publicly or privately.

After all the private devotions -- and they may be quite personally rewarding in themselves -- the pearl of worship for the Church remains the public, formal liturgy, precisely the Eucharist.

Happily, the Church marvelously surrounds the Lenten Eucharists with a collection of Scriptural readings, each with its powerful lesson, and all with the theme of being strong and committed in conversion to Christ.

As has been the case for many years, The Priest, this month and in March, will feature in ''Homily Backgrounds'' reflections on the readings from the Bible for the Liturgies of the Word in Lent.

Study the Readings

Priests will find added enlightenment, and inspiration, in taking more time to study the readings in the Liturgies of the Word.

I always hesitate before suggesting that priests make ''more time'' for almost anything. Priests these days burn the candle at both ends and often in the middle as well.

However, the readings in the Liturgies of the Word for Lent overflow with insight and ring with the call to follow the Lord. It is not just a question of improving homilies, although people repeatedly say that they want more guidance from homilies, but it also is a matter of personal spiritual refreshment.

As already said, The Priest has its ''Homily Backgrounds'' columns. In addition, Catholic bookstores all have shelves with books, either as spiritual reading or as exegesis, on the Scriptures.

If nothing else, almost every priest has somewhere, maybe in some dusty bookcase in some shadowy corner, commentaries or books on the Bible left over from seminary days. Then there are sources on the Internet.

They are all resources.

As observed, this study translates into better homilies, but also into more relevant counseling and more profound functioning as confessors. Partly this has to do with simply better knowing the message of the Scriptures.

Also -- and this is vital -- it is a process whereby Jesus is better known and more intimately encountered personally by the priest.

For this reason, the Liturgy of the Hours during the weeks of Lent is overflowing with spiritual incentive and depth of spiritual realization. The Liturgy of the Hours is the special prayer of the ordained. Beyond this, and because of this, it is even more in Lent a superb asset in purification of human hearts and in meeting the self-giving Lord of Calvary, the living Lord of Easter morn.

Whether deacons, priests and bishops pray the Liturgy of the Hours during Lent, or at another time, they pray not just for themselves personally, or singularly, but they pray as ordained representatives of the Church and for all God's people.

Through them Jesus prays as He once did in the Judean Desert and, in agony, in the Garden of Olives. Such a very moving thought: through and in us, in our Holy Orders, the Lord Jesus prays to the merciful Father as no one else is blessed and called so to pray.

As we plan our parish RCIA sessions and our parochial school programs, write our homilies, lead the Stations, call people to fast and to pray, and of course as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist, we too can serve our people well by praying for them. We can fast for them -- not just from food or favorite pastimes, but by denying ourselves yearnings in our lives -- as we pray that they sooner and better may meet the Lord who loved them so much that he died for them to give them, and us, life. TP

MSGR. CAMPION is editor of The Priest magazine.