. Focus
on ... Ash Wednesday &
Lent Remember,
man, that thou art dust,
and unto dust thou shalt return. . Ash
Wednesday & Lent Ash Wednesday marks
the beginning of the Lenten season, a penitential period of forty days,
excluding Sundays, during which time days of fast and abstinence are
observed, as well as prayer and almsgiving. Ash
Wednesday and the season of Lent have a long tradition in both the
Orthodox Eastern Rite and the Western Roman Rite, and naturally those
traditions have been carried on in most of the Protestant Christian
sects. Ash Wednesday On
Ash Wednesday, the community of the parish attend services during which
time they are marked with ashes on the forehead {or, in the case of
monastics, the tonsure}. The ashes are obtained from the burning
of the palms which had been blessed the previous year on Palm Sunday. The
practice of marking with ashes is almost certainly an extension of the
ancient ritual of public penitence associated with the Lenten season,
for it was during Lent that the penitents who wished to join the Church
were sprinkled with ashes. In addition, they were required, not
only to receive instruction in the faith, but to fast and, if married,
refrain from sexual relations, as well. As the ritual form was
elaborated and public penance was no longer required, most likely before
1000 CE, it came to be the custom for all of the community -- from the
clergy to "the faithful," to the catechumens {i.e., those who
had received sufficient instruction to be called Christian, but not yet
one of the "faithful"} and the "inquirers" {i.e.,
those who had shown an interest but had not yet been pronounced
catechumens}. Tradition has it that, in Rome around this time, all
would gather to receive the ashes, then walk barefoot to the Basilica of
St. Sabina. Lenten Practices
Despite
popular misconceptions, the Lenten season, as well as its requirements,
have varied considerably through the ages. The word itself is
Teutonic and originally meant no more than the season of spring.
But at least since the Anglo-Saxon church, the term has been used to
refer to the forty days of fasting, abstinence, and penance that have
come to be associated with the season. {See the Special Feature on
The Religious Practice of Fasting in
this month's Food & Dining.} At
least since the 5th century CE, some of the Church Fathers held that the
forty days fast -- recalling the fasts of Moses, Elias and Christ -- had
been an integral part of tradition instituted by the Apostles. But
more recent scholarship reveals that practice varied widely in the Early
Church. In fact, a variety of early accounts place the period for
fasting anywhere from a single day to more than forty days, since some
would begin to observe the fast forty days before Palm Sunday, then
observe a more strenuous fast during Passiontide. The
earliest written document to mention the "forty days" comes
from the Council of Nicea in 325 CE, although it is not entirely clear
whether the reference is to the actual number of days, or to the
"fortieth" day, and, therefore, to a particular day's
observance. Not long after, however, St. Athanasius required his
flock to fast for a period of forty days prior to, but not including,
the stricter fast of Holy Week. That was in 331. Shortly
after, returning from travels through Rome and much of Europe in 339,
Athanasius urged the observance of the forty days fast upon the
community in Alexandria, noting that it was universally practiced. The
accuracy of Athanasius's observance may still be considered debatable,
since as late as the 5th century CE, practice with regard to fasting
still appeared to vary widely.  | Pope
St. Gregory the Great |
In
the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great {590-604}, the fast at Rome was
six days of six weeks, or a total of 36 days in all. Some time
later, in order to reconcile the period with the forty days, Ash
Wednesday became the first day of fasting. However, throughout
much of the medieval period, and in the Church of Milan, even to this
day, the 36-day fast was still being observed by some. What
Fasting Entailed
As with the precise observance of the period
for fasting, there was also much variety when it came to what the
requirements of the fast actually enjoined. ... In the
following, keep in mind the difference between fasting &
abstinence. Whereas fasting, at least technically, refers
to refraining from eating or drinking for a specified period, abstinence
refers to what may or may not be eaten. In the 5th century CE,
more modest fasting practices required that one go without food for a
full day, while other, more austere practices meant only one or two
meals a week were eaten. The question, too, of what kinds of food
were permissible during the Lenten season was also the subject of some
debate. Some refrained from any meat at all -- and some of those
for the entire Lenten season -- while others ate fish, and still others,
fowl, or eggs, or cheese. Here, too, it was St. Gregory who set
the rule when, in a letter to St. Augustine of England, he wrote:
"We abstain from flesh meat, and from all things that come from
flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs." This prohibition held even
for the Sundays during Lent, and the decision came to be regarded as the
common law of the Church. More Changes
Throughout
the Middle Ages, then, the forty days fast was recognized, excluding
Sundays, while the abstinence from any meat "and from all things
that come from flesh" was observed throughout Lent. The fast
days required that one refrain from eating until evening, though here,
too, variations were practiced and subsequently instituted over
time. Slowly, then, over the centuries since, modest
changes were made -- at first allowing an earlier meal, then later, a
sustenance to help recuperate from labor that was not considered to be
part of the meal proper, a practice sanctioned by, among others, St.
Thomas Aquinas. Gradually, too, meat was allowed during the Lenten
season -- at first on Sundays, then progressively more, until today,
when there is no longer a specific prohibition against meat at all,
including on Maundy Thursday. In the present scheme of things,
while Catholics are still encouraged to fast throughout the Lenten
season, an apostolic constitution issued by Paul VI in 1966 made fasting
and abstinence obligatory only on Ash Wednesday & Good Friday. SOURCES: The
Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume V Copyright © 1909 by Robert
Appleton Company Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor Imprimatur. +John M.
Farley, Archbishop of New York
Catechism
of the Catholic Church, on-line, The Vatican web site,
prepared by Charles Borromeo Parish, Mississipi, USA.
St. Mary
Everyday Missal, Benziger Bros., Inc., NY, 1958.
"Lent,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 © 1997-2000,
Microsoft Corporation.
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