by Janet Fife
I grew up in a clergy household, have attended church all my life – but I was 27 when I first attended a church that observed Lent. For many years, I vaguely thought “Lent’ was something to do with lentils.
When I joined the Church of England in 1980 the pattern of the church year was one of the things that attracted me. I saw that the structure it provides is a useful discipline. In some of the free churches I’d attended, the range of themes addressed in services was restricted to a few of the minister’s hobbyhorses. Following a lectionary compels us to cover a range of themes.
For the first few years I tried giving up something for Lent. One year I abstained from caffeine and had severe withdrawal symptoms for several days; when the same occurred the following year I gave up caffeine altogether. That stands out as one of the few spiritual benefits I’ve gained from Lenten discipline.
It was when I was ordained that my real problems with Lent began. This was partly because of the sheer grind of all the extra services and events during Lent, coinciding (as it often does) with a seasonal increase in the number of funerals. More significantly, my cathedral curacy was the first time I had encountered Lent being ‘done properly’. The cathedral was an unhappy place at the best of times, and the penitential seasons were misery. I felt I was being ground into the dust. ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return’, in the words of the ashing ritual.
I have found Lent depressing ever since. I once discussed this with my spiritual director – a nun – who said I needn’t bother too much with Lent ‘because there’s enough Lent in your life already’.
Recently, I’ve asked people who find Lent difficult to tell me why. I’ve also asked people who observe Ash Wednesday and Lent what they gain from it. Predictably, one responded that Lent isn’t supposed to be about what we gain; it’s about practicing self-denial. Fair enough. But it seems to me that with any spiritual practice, we ought to be able to tell whether it helps us be more altruistic, gentle, serene, and more faithful to God and other people. I consider those qualities to be gains. I honestly haven’t found Lent observance does this for me; instead I have often been morose, self-pitying, and grumpy with God and the Church. When I was in active ministry this negative effect was no doubt largely due to the pressure of extra Lenten activities, preparations for Holy Week and Easter, and the added administrative burden of the APCM.
But not all of it. Reflecting on what others gain from Ash Wednesday and Lent has made that clear. Of those who could explain what they find helpful (and I realise something may be genuinely beneficial without people being able to explain why), most gave reasons connected to Lenten themes: humility, repentance, self-denial and reminders of mortality. Several quoted ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return’.
I’ve never needed reminding that one day I will die. For many years my besetting sin was despair, and I can say with Keats that ‘many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death.’ For me, it’s a spiritual discipline to focus on life and what brings life. That’s why I know the importance of bringing hope to others.
Repentance and humility, if unconnected to any specific offence, too easily morph into a general sense of unworthiness and gloom. At least, that’s my experience – and clearly shared by a number of others. Self-denial can increase the focus on self and lead to spiritual pride, or simply be meaningless. ‘Repentance in public without change of heart is very dispiriting. Real questions are never asked. Put it all on the faraway death of the Saviour Sacrifice; God is satisfied and all can go on as before, with no change.’ One correspondent pointed out that the elderly often have poor appetites, so have to make an effort to eat rather than giving up treats.
Another said he finds Lent ‘too structured, too prescriptive’; his most effective way of tuning in to God is to sit by the sea. A third finds the tradition ‘sanctimonious, rather than mindful and connected’. Others replied that they find the liturgy and ritual, the Lent reading and prayers, the ‘do this thing, pray this prayer, read this book’ approach ‘weird’, ‘alienating’, or ‘meaningless’. Signficantly, I think, many of those who felt negatively about Lent were women, or survivors, or both. In my chapter ‘The Gospel, Victims, and Common Worship’ in Letters to a Broken Church, I discuss at more length why women and survivors may find the Church’s stress on repentance unhelpful and even damaging. This may be why a number of people find Lent ‘miserable’,
The words, ‘You are dust, and to dust you will return’ (Gen. 3:19) are addressed by God specifically to Adam, not to Eve. Adam, made from dust according to the Gen. 2 account, is master of creation and needs to be kept humble – literally, to be grounded. Eve, created not from dust but from Adam’s rib, will be dominated and kept humble by him. And so it has proved.
Some value Lent because it’s an ancient tradition. The first record of Lent comes from a ruling of the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The Council was convened, only 2 years after Christianity became the official religion of Rome, by the Emperor Constantine in order to impose order and uniformity on the Church. All 1,800 bishops within the Roman Empire were invited; contemporary reports of the number of prelates actually attending vary between 250-318. To me that seems a rather flimsy basis on which to establish a practice intended to be universal; but it had Constantine’s authority behind it and it stuck – and indeed has spread to churches then outside the Roman Empire.
If you are trying to keep an unruly empire in order, adopting religious practices encouraging people in humility and reflection on their sin and mortality, can only be helpful to you. We don’t know where they got the idea of Lent observance came from, but it wasn’t the New Testament. Jesus kept a 40-day fast only once, to prepare for his ministry. and he went alone into the wilderness to do it. Matthew ch. 6 records Jesus instructing his disciples that when they pray, fast, or give to charity they are to show no outward sign of it, but to keep it secret: an instruction which might preclude wearing ash on your forehead or announcing what you’re giving up. St. Paul, in Gal 4:10-11, rebukes the Galatians for ‘observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years’, seeing it as a sign of spiritual regression.
I haven’t written this to discourage those who find Lenten observance an aid to following Christ more truly. They have the approval of most churches and need only continue as they are doing, if it is genuinely helpful. I’ve written for those who find Lent adds further burdens to an already difficult life, or increases their self-loathing and misery. Church leaders, too, need to be aware that Lent is not for everyone, and failing to keep it doesn’t betoken spiritual failure.
Well, I’m now guilty of repetition as I quoted these words of Pope Francis very recently on Stephen’s thread “Repentance and Forgiveness. A Lenten Reflection”. When finding them, quite by accident, and reading them in St Anne’s Cathedral, Leeds they were instantly inspiring.
But they are worth repeating, particularly for those who didn’t see them on the earlier thread. Pope Francis has offered in every case a positive outcome as the alternative to a present negative.
DO YOU WANT TO FAST THIS LENT?
– Fast from hurting words and say kind words
– Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude
– Fast from anger and be filled with patience
– Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope
– Fast from worries and have trust in God
– Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity
– Fast from pressures and be prayerful
– Fast from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy
– Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others
– Fast from grudges and be reconciled
– Fast from words and be silent, so you can listen.
Doesn’t the word Lent actually mean Spring? ie the period when the days lengthen? So out with the droopy dirges, and “Now the green blade rises”.
Many will find they have to fast from actual church attendance. Over the next few weeks, the need for people to self-isolate with threatened, or test positive for Coronavirus infection.
The global pandemic is now making alarming inroads into the U.K. The mainstream Churches are making noises about how they might or might not alter the way they administer the elements.
The world outside will take careful note of how people of faith respond to the crisis. Reports of risk taking and a cavalier disregard for the health of others, will not be tolerated.
This is a time for prayer, and I suspect, relative solitude. My personal reflection will be on the fragility of life and those who are suffering and recently now bereaved.
This is so very true, and many thanks (many thanks also to Janet for her characteristically excellent piece). Most worshippers are elderly, and are very vulnerable to Covid-19; the Italian experience indicates that the mortality rate for the over 70s is far higher than initially thought.
I went to a number of services in the Birmingham, Coventry and Worcester dioceses last Sunday – possibly my last jaunt for a while – and what was striking is how many were sharing the peace in the usual way or taking communion in both kinds. Still more striking was that at only two of the services I went to was there any evidence of a hand sanitiser; I found myself scrubbing my hands furiously using my own gel after each service.
No less seriously, I wonder how many churches will go to the wall if they do not get the income they desperately need. I recall a few years ago going to some services along the Solway Firth and came across Grinsdale, a little to the west of Carlisle: that church closed because of the foot and mouth epidemic about twenty years ago (it is now being converted to a house, despite being an ancient foundation and a building of considerable charm). I can confidently expect diocesan deficits to yawn this year – note that their investments will face the double whammy of zero real interest rates and collapsing share prices. The Commissioners will be hit too. Perhaps there might also be a hysteresis effect: many elderly people who might have felt willing to go to church might prefer to stay at home, even if the virus fades in the spring and summer (which is itself moot); if the virus lingers in the population and then comes back more vigorously in the autumn and/or mutates further it is likely that a significant section of the declining church-going population may stay away for a long time – and a number of them might not come back (not least because they have ceased to be).
The instructions are already out in the CofE. No wine, no snogs, or even hand shakes, alcohol spray on the communion table.
As I understand it, in the early days, baptisms happened at Easter, and the candidates would fast for forty days before hand, all sitting at the front of the assembly. Then the folk at the back started shifting uneasily in their seats – if those young ‘uns are fasting up to Easter, perhaps we should too. And that’s where Lent came from.
Another tradition whose origin I am aware of is the ringing of a bell at one point in the service. This was because the superstition was that if you saw the host being elevated, you would not die that day. The bell was rung so that the uninterested men, who were busily playing dice in the church porch, could hurry in to watch the lifting. Fun! There was even a man in Grantham who worked out a route running round seven churches who managed to see the host going up seven times on a Sunday, which would keep him alive all week. Presumably he is still with us, aged something over 400 by now.
Notice how a custom can turn into a tradition, and then be imbued with sanctity. A good example is incense, which needed to be wafted about in former times to cover up the smell of the unwashed parishioners.
Janet’s words are the perfect follow up to Stephen’s piece on forgiveness. It’s the thing about shame; as survivors we often feel the abuse was somehow our fault, we must be bad for them to do this to us. We can feel soiled and contaminated. Our abusers may have told us it was for our own good.
Then this may be compounded by Christians telling us to forgive, but we don’t feel very forgiving. Or people finding it hard to believe us – but he’s such a nice man!
Often our struggle is to NOT take the responsibility on ourselves, to understand that were innocent victims, to realise that our abusers were to blame and it’s them that need to repent (sadly few seem to). And the church that needs to repent for not protecting us better, and often for responding badly when we try to tell.
So yes, for all those reasons Lent is a struggle and repentance can be a particularly unhelpful concept.
And yet..I actually like Lent, and Advent, the thing of self-reflection and preparation. I use the desert idea to spend more time in silent meditation,just sitting with God. I take repentance to mean not being about being sinful, but leaning in to God and trying not to do things that damage myself or others. It can be a space to try to learn not to judge myself for being a victim, for finding a kinder coping strategy than self-harm. For shedding shame and drawing closer to God’s love. I like the fact that Lent is sad and solemn and focused on suffering. I suffered and have a lot to be sad about. It can be validating to be able to sit with that for a while, not to have to pretend to be a happy, sorted christian
Maybe Lent works if we do it together. If as a church we sit with those who are closest to the suffering of the cross, mourning, without trying to fix them. And then show repentance by making whatever changes we need to prevent the suffering. That’s the kind of repentance survivors long for.
Oh, Jane. What a fabulous post. I enjoy the quiet time, too. But I’m also aware of feeling guilty. Probably, in my case, simply because I always do! Thank you so much.
Thank you! Oh yes, I totally relate to that feeling guilty about everything all the time 🙁
I think its all related to the shame thing. I love what Brene Brown writes about that, that its the fear of disconnection, and the way to shed shame is to be vulnerable, truthful and connect.
I’m trying to use my therapy as part of the quiet time, to deal with shame. I made a ‘cloak of shame’ that was all the bad stuff that rightly belongs to my abusers, but I have ended up carrying as part of the twisted effects of trauma. I am trying to use my therapists safe, unconditional love & acceptance as a space to connect deeply and create an alternative ‘cloak of joy’ (Easter?).
I think that’s the significance of Lent for me. I can’t jump to the joy (resurrection/restoration) without sitting with the wrongness of the shame for a while (desert time) to recognise it, understand it, expose it to the light of truth and push it back to my abusers where it belongs. And doing that with connection with someone who understands and supports. God or therapist, maybe similar roles?! Its the Lent journey that creates the possibility of Easter.
Its taken many years to bet here, though. Like Janet wrote, Lent before was so hard. Probably when I felt most alone and suicidal. So important that we recognise that everyone’s spiritual journey is different and we support each other to walk our own path with no judgement.
Indeed. And off topic, I hope everyone is well.
Thank you English Athena, I’m alright thanks, if a little nervous. I’ve considered you to be head pastor in this community for some time!
Aldi and Sainsbury’s were depleted last night. A number of essential items were unavailable. Those that had done their panic buying had been and gone.
Roads, railways, towns and villages are strangely quiet at the moment.
I’ve done more praying in the last week than in the last year.
I trust that you are well and thanks again for asking about others.
Steve
That’s very kind of you, Steve. I’m actually in bed, instead of church! No sore throat or cough, but I do have a temperature. I’m hoping to be up and about and feeling like a fraud tomorrow, but we’ll see. I’m missing the Lent Litany this morn. Pity.
Get well soon!
Best wishes, Steve
Athena, I hope you’re soon well. Have you got any one to look after you? If not, don’t wait too long before getting help if you need it.
Oh, my family are here, thanks Janet. And I’m not very poorly. Under normal circumstances you would just carry on, wouldn’t you?
That’s interesting and helpful, Jane. May I ask if this is the first Lent you’ve handled in this way, or whether you go through this process every year?
For myself, I think Lent was actually harder after I’d gone through therapy for my abuse, because I’ve felt I was being put back into that place of false guilt and shame again.
To me it seems bizarre that we’re not supposed to use e.g. the Gloria during Lent, or say Hallelujah. If we are reflecting on our own failures, we need to focus all the more on God’s love and grace. Judging by some of the comments coming directly to me, I’m not the only one to find Lent unduly negative.
I had a friend who just hated the miserable hymns, and I’d agree with that. “False and full of sin I am”! I don’t think we should be miserable, just thoughtful. But then, it’s not a trigger for me. We always live in the light of Easter.
Jane and others, are you familiar with Psalm 109? Note the cloaks in verses 19 and 29.
On a related note about how evil does not satisfy, I noticed Psalm seven verse fourteen the other day and pondered it.
Oh thanks David, I hadn’t read psalm 109 for years, love the idea “my abusers be clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.” I will try this in therapy, imagining taking the cloak off me and onto them, &a few bishops, & a few others whose response has been reabusive!
Thanks Jane. I don’t think many of us read passages like Psalm 109, but they are there for a reason. Helpful in time of need.
Oh Janet, absolutely, I know many other survivors who struggle with Lent, and Christians who can really be spiritually abusive by making survivors feel guilty and suggest they don’t heal because they haven’t repented and forgiven their abuser! (Grrr)
Didn’t mean to suggest that a miserable, sackcloth & ashes Lent isn’t a bad thing for many people.
I guess over the years I have tried to reclaim Lent as a helpful time of self-reflection & meditation. It’s been a developing practice over many years/variations. The cloak of shame thing is new, as just started back in therapy. About to write a blog about it! Maybe I should sew one for the bishops….
Has anyone had word of Susannah who was testifying to IICSA and dreading it?
No. She posted on TA over the weekend but since she hasn’t shared it there I don’t want to mention it either.