“The holy days of Lent are now at hand. So that we will be able to conquer all our enemies,
let
us seek Divine help by observance of God’s will, knowing that we cannot defeat our enemies unless we
prevail
over ourselves.” (St. Leo the Great, Sermon 39 on Lent)
The Forty Days of Lent is one of the most ancient of the Church’s traditions. It prepares us for celebrating the awe-inspiring feast of the death and resurrection of Christ. This forty-day period is not arbitrary: it has an important spiritual significance. The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years before they were given the Land of Promise. Moses was on Mt. Sinai for forty days when the Lord spoke with him and gave him the Law. Goliath taunted the Israelites for forty days until he was killed by David. Elijah fasted during a forty-day trek through the desert and received a revelation of God on Mt. Sinai. Most importantly, Jesus went out into the desert to fast and pray for forty days and to battle the devil. These episodes show the forty-day period to be one of purification, of self-denial, of battle, and of meeting the Living God. The Church has taken a cue from this history and has led its people into the desert every year for a forty-day communal Christian retreat. This is a time for turning to the Lord in fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. This is a time to meet God anew and rekindle our love for him. It has also been taken as a time of intensified spiritual warfare during which God’s people work to establish Christ’s Kingdom and the devil counterattacks with increased fury. “Come enter the warfare!” has been the cry of many of our Fathers at the beginning of Lent.
We too will be heading out into the desert in the footsteps of the Israelite people. God has much that he wants to accomplish in us before we can receive the kingdom he has prepared for us. We need to be further purified. We need to come to know Our Lord better. We need to be trained in battle so that we can lay our enemies low and capture our Land of Promise. To become skilled in spiritual warfare, we will be considering five “fighting virtues” that will help us conquer in the daily battle: humility, self-mastery, courage, zeal, and perseverance.
Our road through the desert from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday will be a trek of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. Along the way, we will be accompanied by St. Leo the Great, St. Thomas More, and St. John Henry Newman. Their wisdom will strengthen us and enlighten our steps. Along the way, we will also be meditating on the Letter to the Hebrews, a book that will prepare us to celebrate well the great Easter victory feast, which is the high point of our year.
Come then, brothers. Come and enter into these forty days for yourself, for your family, and for your brothers. “Come enter the warfare.”
Welcome to Lent.