The Last Supper

original digitized image

original digitized image

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How Leonardo da Vinci

pictured the Last Supper

article link

The Last Supper (1494-1498) by Leonardo da Vinci
in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan

During the bitter-cold first week in February, I went to snow-bound Milan to write stories about an annual world-class food-and-wine event called “IdentitàGolose” and Milan University’s Library and Archive of Egyptology. With great good luck (because the obligatory reservations made online via www.milan-museum.com often have a two-month backlog), I was able to squeeze in a same-day visit, which lasts barely 15 minutes, to see Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper, one of his 17 paintings and the only one not on canvas. I’d seen it only once before, almost 50 years ago. Just a month before Easter, I thought I’d share with ITV readers the unique way polymath Leonardo (1452-1519), a sculptor, architect, musician, draftsman, scientist, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, geologist, and cartographer, as well as painter, pictured this prelude to Our Savior’s sacrifice by telling this spellbinding mural’s story.

A self-portrait of Da Vinci depicted as the Apostle Jude Thaddeus

THE PAINTING

In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci, then 30, left Tuscany to be the court painter for Duke Ludovico Sforza (1451-1508) and his wife Duchess Beatrice d’Este (1475-1497) in Milan. A decade or so later, his patron commissioned Leonardo to paint The Last Supper as the centerpiece of his planned mausoleum in the monastery of the recently-completed Dominican Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which was later remodeled by Bramante, also the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. Leonardo began work, which was supposed to take a year, in 1494, but did not complete the painting until 1498. According to Wikipedia’s article about Leonardo, “the novelist Matteo Bandello observed Leonardo at work and wrote that some days he would paint from dawn to dusk without stopping to eat and then not paint for three or four days at a time. This was beyond the comprehension of the prior of the convent, who hounded him until Leonardo

asked Ludovico to intervene. Vasari describes how Leonardo, troubled over his ability to depict the faces of Christ and Judas (Iscariot), told the Duke that he might be obliged to use the prior as his ‘model’ for Judas.”

It is generally believed that the white-bearded Apostle on the right of the painting, Jude Thaddeus, is the artist’s self-portrait.

Leonardo also probably cryptically “signed” this work; the knot at the end of the tablecloth’s right-hand edge represents the Latin word for knot, vincium.

An earlier version of the scene: The Last Supper by Ghirlandaio (1482). Located in Florence

LEONARDO’S CONCEPTION

The Last Supper theme was a traditional one for refectories, although this room wasn’t a refectory at the time Leonardo painted his masterpiece on the north wall. His work of art represents the Last Supper as told in the Gospel of John 13:21, when Jesus announces that one of his twelve Apostles would betray him before sunrise, but does not reveal which one. We know that Leonardo studied earlier paintings by Ghirlandaio and Andrea del Castagno with traditional iconography that focuses instead on the moment of the traitor’s identification, when Judas, who is represented in an isolated position with respect to the other Apostles, receives a piece of bread from Jesus and dips it in his dish. Leonardo, however, preferred the moment prior to this, dominated by doubt. His is the first version of this theme with the Apostles displaying the human emotions of doubt, shock, fear, and anger through the expressions on their faces, the movements of their hands, and their body language, which contrast with Jesus’ calmness. It should also be mentioned that the daylight and unbroken bread confirm that it is too early for Judas to have been identified as the traitor.

Giacomo Raffaelli’s life-size mosaic copy of Leonardo’s
Last Supper (1809-14), now in Vienna’s Minoritenkirche

TECHNIQUE

A wall panel in the entrance to the refectory explains: “Leonardo creates a sense of continuity between the actual space of the refectory and the painted space through an exceptional use of perspective, which has Christ’s right temple as its vanishing point; all the lines of perspective in the composition guide the viewer’s eye towards Jesus’ face, the narrative center of the work.” Leonardo’s early ideas, both notes and preparatory drawings, for this painting are illustrated in a sheet of figure studies, no. 12542r, conserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.

Another first is that Leonardo’s Judas is not seated as is customary with his back to the viewer and, unlike the other well-lit Apostles, is in a shadow. He is also holding a purse. Although he would not yet have received the 30 silver coins, he was the treasurer for the Apostles. Until The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci were discovered during the 19th century, only Judas, Peter, John and Jesus could be positively identified.

The painting contains several references to the number 3 or the Blessed Trinity. The Apostles are seated in groups of three: to the left of Jesus (from the viewer’s point of view): Bartholomew, James the Lesser, and Andrew; Peter, Judas Iscariot, and John; to the right of Jesus: Thomas, James the Greater, and Philip; Matthew, Jude Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot; there are three windows behind Jesus; and the shape of Jesus’ figure resembles a triangle.

MEDIUM

Also unique to The Last Supper is the medium Leonardo, always the inventor, used. According to Wikipedia, “he painted it on a dry wall rather than on wet plaster, so it is not a true fresco. Since a fresco cannot be modified as the artist works, Leonardo instead chose to seal the stone wall with a layer of pitch, gesso, and mastic, then paint onto the sealing layer with tempera.” Because of the method he used so that he, a known procrastinator with a marked tendency to leave projects unfinished, could make changes, his masterpiece began to deteriorate after a few years. The only evidence we have of what the original painting looked like is a 16th-century oil canvas by an unknown artist, in approximately original size, now housed in the Premonstratensian monastery, founded in 1128, at Tongerlo in Westerlo near Antwerp in Belgium. The copy reveals many details that are no longer visible in the original fresco, in particular the food, the room’s décor, and the landscape. Between 1809 and 1814 the Roman mosaic artist Giacomo Raffaelli made another life-size copy, commissioned by Napoleon and now in the Viennese Minoritenkirche.

The Last Supper by Dalí

DETERIORATION

In 1517, Don Antonio de Beatis was the first to testify that Leonardo’s painting “is already beginning to be damaged.” Some 50 years later, in 1566, Leonardo’s biographer Giorgio Vasari wrote in his Lives: “Of the original by Leonardo (…) one can now perceive only a glaring stain.” A century later, the Dominican Fathers enlarged the door at the center of the wall that connected the refectory to the kitchen, which, although later bricked up, is still visible. It eliminated the part that depicted Christ’s feet, which, through early copies, were supposedly in a position symbolizing his forthcoming crucifixion. Further damage was done in 1768 when a curtain was hung over the painting to protect it; instead it trapped moisture on the surface, and whenever pulled back, scratched the flaking paint. In 1722, an English traveler testified that the rough wall was visible in various parts of the “fresco.” In 1799, when Napoleon’s troops turned the refectory into a stable and barn, the painting suffered still further vandalism. The soldiers passed their free time throwing stones at the painting and climbed ladders to scratch out the Apostles’ eyes. In 1812, the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie was used as a headquarters by the fire brigade and subsequently as a military barracks. In 1934, the refectory became a state museum, while the church and the cloisters were returned to the Dominicans. During the Second World War, on the night of August 15, 1943, a bomb struck the cloisters, causing the collapse of the refectory’s vault and its east wall. The Last Supper was saved from bomb splinters thanks to sandbags put in place at the start of the war. After a long period of “open air,” the collapsed parts of the refectory were rebuilt in 1947.

The Last Supper by Andy Warhol

RESTORATION

The Last Supper by Andy Warhol

A first restoration was attempted in 1726 by Michelangelo Bellotti, who filled in missing sections with oil paint and then varnished the whole mural; many others followed over the next two centuries. By the end of the 1970s the painting’s appearance had so badly deteriorated that, from 1978 to 1999, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon guided a major restoration project, which, in a sealed, climate-controlled ambience, undertook to stabilize the painting permanently and reverse the damage caused by dirt, pollution and the misguided 18th- and 19th- century restoration attempts. On May 28th, 1999, the painting was put back on display.

In 1980, UNESCO made the Santa Maria delle Grazie complex and The Last Supper a World Heritage site.

SPECULATIONS

Perhaps because of its deteriorated state, Leonardo’s Last Supper has been the target of much speculation by historians and writers, usually centered around purported hidden messages within the painting.

Several examples follow:

1) The Templar Revelation (1997) by Lynn Pickett and Clive Prince and The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown both identify the person seated at Jesus’s right hand not as John the Apostle, but as a woman, and none other than Mary Magdalene, who supposedly bore Christ’s child after his death. It is true that the beardless John looks quite effeminate, but he was much younger than the other Apostles except for Phillip and maybe Matthew, both of whom are beardless here, too, while the others all have beards. Moreover, the Bible never mentions Mary Magdalene as present at the Last Supper, and if John is Mary, then where is John?

2) According to an article by Matthew Moore published on July 30, 2007 in The Telegraph, Slavisa Pesci, “an information technologist and amateur scholar,” superimposed Leonardo’s version of The Last Supper on its mirror image (with both images of Jesus lined up) and claimed that the resultant picture has a Templar Knight on the far left, a woman dressed in orange and holding a swaddled baby in her arms to the left of Jesus, and the Holy Grail in the form of a chalice in front of Jesus. With the naked eye no chalice is visible, although Jesus’ left hand is pointing to the Eucharist and his right to a glass of wine.

3) Giovanni Maria Pala, an Italian musician, has indicated that the positions of the hands and loaves of bread can be interpreted as notes on a musical staff, and, if read from right to left (because Leonardo was left-handed), form a musical composition.

4) Reported by British Vatican correspondent Richard Owen in an article entitled, “Da Vinci ‘predicted the world would end in 4066’ says Vatican researcher” in the London Times on March 15, 2010, is the most far-fetched of all theories. Sabrina Sforza Galitzia claimed to have deciphered the “mathematical and astrological” puzzle in Leonardo’s The Last Supper. She said that Leonardo foresaw the end of the world in a “universal flood” which would begin on March 21, 4006, and end on November 1 the same year. Leonardo believed that this would mark “a new start for humanity.”

The Last Supper by Escobar

Leonardo’s Last Supper is open all day Tuesday to Sunday from 8:15 AM to 7 PM with a maximum group of 25 people admitted every 15 minutes. Closed Mondays and on January 1st, May 1st, and Christmas Day. My same-day ticket, reserved by my hotel, cost 8 euros.

Epilogue

If you can’t make it to Milan, in Room VIII of the Pinocateca in the Vatican Museums there’s a Flemish tapestry of the Last Supper designed by Raphael, and in Raphael’s loggia on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace, one of the frescoes executed by Raphael’s workshop from 1517-19 is of the Last Supper. One of the frescoes on the northern wall of the Sistine Chapel, devoted to scenes from the life of Jesus and painted by Cosimo Rosselli (1431-1507) in 1481-2, also depicts the Last Supper.

There are several modern renditions of the Last Supper in the US. In 1955, Salvador Dalí painted The Sacrament of the Last Supper, one of the most popular paintings in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Sculptor Marisol Escobar was inspired by Leonardo’s Last Supper. Her work is in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. And in 1986, Andy Warhol was commissioned to produce a series of paintings based on The Last Supper. They were first exhibited in a bank across the street from Santa Maria delle Grazie. This was Warhol’s last series of paintings before his death. On loan from the Andy Warhol Museum in his hometown of Pittsburgh, one of Warhol’s many paintings of The Last Supper (the Museum, at 117 Sandusky Street, owns three others) will take part in the traveling exhibition of 300 works “Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal” to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the artist’s death. The exhibition opened at the ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, in Singapore on March 17 and will travel to five other Asian cities: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and Tokyo, over the next 27 months.

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POEMS

The Last Supper, by Lydia Sigourney

The Last Supper, by Jack Stewart

The Last Supper, by Rainer Maria Rilke

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10 Secrets of The Last Supper

by Leonardo da Vinci

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The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

In 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began what would become one of history's most influential works of art - The Last Supper

The Last Supper is Leonardo's visual interpretation of an event chronicled in all four of the Gospels (books in the Christian New Testament). The evening before Christ was betrayed by one of his disciples, he gathered them together to eat, tell them he knew what was coming and wash their feet (a gesture symbolizing that all were equal under the eyes of the Lord). As they ate and drank together, Christ gave the disciples explicit instructions on how to eat and drink in the future, in remembrance of him. It was the first celebration of the Eucharist, a ritual still performed.

Specifically, The Last Supper depicts the next few seconds in this story after Christ dropped the bombshell that one disciple would betray him before sunrise, and all twelve have reacted to the news with different degrees of horror, anger, and shock.

Leonardo hadn't worked on such a large painting and had no experience in the standard mural medium of fresco. The painting was made using experimental pigments directly on the dry plaster wall and unlike frescos, where the pigments are mixed with the wet plaster, it has not stood the test of time well. Even before it was finished there were problems with the paint flaking from the wall and Leonardo had to repair it. Over the years it has crumbled, been vandalized bombed and restored. Today we are probably looking at very little of the original.

Much of the recent interest in the painting has centered on the details hidden within the painting, but in directing attention to these 'hidden' details, most people miss the incredible sense of perspective the work displays. The sharp angling of the walls within the picture, which leads back to the seemingly distant back wall of the room and the windows that show the hills and sky beyond. The type of day shown through these windows adds to the feeling of serenity that rests in the center of the piece, around the figure of Christ.

The Layout of The Last Supper

The Last Supper Perspective

Leonardo balanced the perspective construction of the Last Supper so that its vanishing point is immediately behind Christ's right temple, pointing to the physical location of the center, or sensus communis, of his brain. By pulling a string in radial directions from this point, he marked the table ends, floor lines, and orthogonal edges of the six ceiling coffer columns. From the right and/or left edge of the horizon line, he drew diagonal lines up to the coffer corners, locating points for the horizontal lines of the 12 coffer rows.

Leonardo was well known for his love of symmetry. In his Last Supper, the layout is largely horizontal. The large table is seen in the foreground of the image with all of the figures behind it. The painting is largely symmetrical with the same number of figures on either side of Jesus. The above diagram shows how the perspective the Last Super was worked out with a series of marks at key points highlighting the architectural aspects of the composition and positioning of the figures.

10 Facts You Might not

Know about the Masterpiece

1. Who's who in "The Last Supper"

Who's who in the Last Supper

2. The secret of "The Last Supper"

The Last Supper is a very popular religious scene painted by many celebrated artists. Unlike artists before and after him, Leonardo da Vinci chose not to put halos on Jusus Christ. Many art historians believe that Leonardo da Vinci believe in nature, not in God. To Leonardo, nature is God, so he treated every character in the fresco as common people.

3. "Last Supper" is a failed experiment.

Unlike traditional frescoes, which Renaissance masters painted on wet plaster walls, Leonardo experimented with tempura paint on a dry, sealed plaster wall in the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery in Milan, Italy. The experiment proved unsuccessful, however, because the paint did not adhere properly and began to flake away only a few decades after the work was finished.

4. The spilled salt is symbolic.

Speculations about symbolism in the artwork are plentiful. For example, many scholars have discussed the meaning of the spilled salt container near Judas's elbow. Spilled salt could symbolize bad luck, loss, religion, or Jesus as salt of the earth.

5. Eel or herring?

Scholars have also remarked on da Vinci's choice of food. They dispute whether the fish on the table is herring or eel since each carries its own symbolic meaning. In Italian, the word for eel is "aringa." The similar word, "arringa," means to indoctrinate. In northern Italian dialect, the word for herring is "renga," which also describes someone who denies religion. This would fit with Jesus' biblical prediction that his apostle Peter would deny knowing him.

6. Da Vinci used a hammer and nail to help him to achieve the one-point perspective.

What makes the masterpiece so striking is the perspective from which it's painted, which seems to invite the viewer to step right into the dramatic scene. To achieve this illusion, da Vinci hammered a nail into the wall, then tied string to it to make marks that helped guide his hand in creating the painting's angles.

7. The existing mural is not 100% da Vinci's work.

At the end of the 20th century, restorer Panin Brambilla Barcilon and his crew relied on microscopic photographs, core samples, infrared reflectoscopy and sonar to remove the added layers of paint and restore the original as accurately as possible. Critics maintain that only a fraction of the painting that exists today is the work of Leonardo da Vinci.

8. Three early copies of the original exist.

Three of da Vinci's students, including Giampietrino, made copies of his painting early in the 16th century. Giampietrino did a full-scale copy that is now in London's Royal Academy of Arts. This oil painting on canvas was the primary resource for the latest restoration of the work. The second copy by Andrea Solari is in the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Belgium while the third copy by Cesare da Sesto is in the Church of Saint Ambrogio in Switzerland.

The Last Supper Copy - by Giampietrino

9. The painting is also a musical score.

According to Italian musician Giovanni Maria Pala, da Vinci incorporated musical notes in "The Last Supper." In 2007, Pala created a 40-second melody from the notes that were allegedly hidden in the scene.

10. The painting has been a victim of neglect and abuse.

In 1652, monastery residents cut a new door in the wall of the deteriorating painting, which removed a chunk of the artwork showing the feet of Jesus. Late in the 18th century, Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers turned the area into a stable and further damaged the wall with projectiles. During World War II, the Nazis bombed the monastery, reducing surrounding walls to rubble.

R.E. Slater - Butterfly Wings of Promise

 

Butterfly Wings of Promise

by R.E. Slater

There is wisdom in renewing silence in one's life

When far too many souls speak noise and death.

Using special times of the year like the season

Of Lent, in aiding removal of worldly uproar.

Seeking olden paths of yesterday's lessons

To guide tomorrow's paths its glades

And shaded arbors, restoring peace

To the disquiet of restless voices.

Unweary the discord or havoc

Sown into the lives of those 

Around living desperate

days of want and need

Unheard, unsought,

Overlooked their

Casualties.

Nay, then,

Such silence

Is unequal to the

Noise erupting both

Streets and congresses

Of unwise souls fueling

Anger's injustices on aires

Of silent nods by unrighteous

Congregants across unrelenting

Pulpits shouting bondage's chains

To the ruin of lands and cities once

United by common civil bonds of grace

And mercy to all who seek public accord.

Yearning freedom's promised equalities of

Endless life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

R.E. Slater

February 19, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

An Accompanying Note

Stylistically: Because this is a visual poem I originally had it centered in the page but later noticed when viewed on cell phones or tablets it became distorted. Hence the smaller font and usage of left justification for viewing variety.

Subject Matter: I'm not sure I can consciously agree to stay silent even during the Lental period of spiritual reflection and penitence of spirit with so much noise filling the world by its oppressive rhetorics and actions from church and state here in America. To sit by and watch in silence may be the greatest crime of all - if not the greatest hypocrisy of all. Thus, have I thought these past recent years when witnessing again America's rising apartheidism and now, the dearth of hoary wisdom of Constitutional voices it once leaned so heavily upon but as soon conveniently forgetting when it comes to standing united with mixed cultures, races, nationalities, religions, and genders.

Now, in difference to America's civil unrests in the 50s and 60s, such as those led by Martin Luther King's civil rights protests, there but lies silent nods of granite approval about me embracing white racism and Christian Nationalism by friend and neighbor who grieve not as I grieve. Rather, in strident voice, yell and shout their rights to their ignominy and shame in my ear. Yet, for those who like myself yearn for a special kind of reverent silence during the holy seasons of the church year I find in its practice a grave rarity knowing its healing force if applied aright by the ones who would practice it.

These are not the silent, cheering portals to bondage and injustice but numbed souls held in pained worlds already haunted by the tyrannies of the day's trials and blames. Here, to those souls, may all wounded find healing in the refreshingly quiet breezes of unconquered hearts contemplating how to heal and aide amid the noise of fools more willing to extend suffering then to ease another's pain. May these small measures of fleshly grace overflow unquiet hearts seeking voice and direction how to do and to act in the tomorrows lying ahead.

R.E. Slater

February 19, 2021

Art: Heinrich Vogeler

 

“To those who contemplate the beauty of the earth may they find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated whispered refrains of nature... the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ~Rachel Carson 

Artist: Jim Holland (American, 1955)

Title: ”Hopper's House" (2008)

Medium: Oil on canvas

Cape Cod artist Jim Holland's "Hopper's House”, one of the contemporary landscapes featured in Lauren P. Della Monica's new book, pays homage to 19th-century artist Edward Hopper.

 

Lauren P. Della Monica

Amazon link

 

Painted Landscapes, Contemporary Views explores American landscape painting today, its relevance in the contemporary art world, and its historic roots. This volume profiles sixty individual living artists (and over 200 color images) whose contributions distinguish important aspects of the genre and address land use, nature appreciation, and ecology through landscape painting. Encompassing every style from traditional realism (with a contemporary edge) to abstraction and non-objectivity, these contemporary artists range from today's art stars to emerging or regionally recognized talent in the Eastern, Western, and Southwestern regions of the nation.

 

Amazon link

 

Human forms can be intensely intimate or broadly universal. Here, figurative artists use the human form as a tool to express varied content and contemporary issues. These paintings depict our feelings and sentiments, our sense of belonging to a larger community in the contemporary world, while capturing the impulses behind the range of figuration presented by today's contemporary international artists. Portraitist Marlene Dumas presents figures in a gritty, unsentimental manner, evoking the essence of the human condition, while Kerry James Marshall paints the life of African-Americans in the twentieth-century, employing recent historical review to document the social challenges. British artist Jenny Saville paints the figure in massive scale, combined with an overt, never-ending interest in the pure rendering of human flesh. Hope Gangloff paints her figures as characters, intimate friends, and acquaintances, narrating a drama from their canvases. An important resource for those interested in contemporary figurative painting.

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A Silent Lent

By Br. Timothy Danaher, O.P.

February 11, 2016

Image: Mirai Takahashi, Standing Alone

Imagine that the ghost of Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, appeared to you in a dream. So you ask him, “Sir, what do you suggest I do for Lent this year? I’m already late in choosing.” Before vanishing, he might reply solemnly with his famous words:

If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.

 

How much silence do you have in your life? That question is directly connected to the impatience, anxiety, and distraction we feel on a daily basis.

Silence is an age-old secret—not even exclusively Christian—with enormous benefits.

Time to testify.

I have been amazed by the energy I recover from silence. This happened last month when I was on retreat in the Shenandoah Valley. How many hours of sleep did I get per night? About six. How many do I get on average? About six. Yet after very full days—reading, thinking, hiking, praying—I felt amazingly refreshed. Because I had more silence.

Silence also helps us notice things around us. We Dominicans usually eat breakfast together, but whenever I eat alone in silence, I notice amazing things: “This bread actually has taste! I don’t even need to butter it,” or, “Look, my schedule has only a few simple things. It’s totally do-able. It’s stupid that I wake up with such anxiety.” Silence to the rescue again. 

Finally, silence actually isn’t silent. We hear ourselves in silence, and we hear God. Mother Teresa wrote much about this silence. For instance:

The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. In that silence, He will listen to us; there He will speak to our soul, and there we will hear His voice. 

But right here, exactly at the deepest possibility of silence—to hear God’s voice speak to our most honest self—we hit a wall. Silence is scary. Few of us feel ready to hear God speak to us. What might he say? And are we also ready to even face ourselves? Those unpracticed in silence often come up immediately against an inner storm: worries, anger, lusts, projections about the future, snippets of what he or she said, and above all, memories.

If we need silence but lack the courage, how can we begin?

Here we need the wisdom of Nike: Just do it! We have to first choose silence—40 days is a great chance for a first attempt. Like exercise, there’s an initial painful conditioning period, but it doesn’t last very long! If someone who knows silence has promised you its benefits, you can keep at it and fight for it. 

But what if we lack the time or space for silence?

True, not everyone has the silence of Bl. Charles de Foucauld, living out in the African desert, a lone Christian alone with Jesus. We can only create silence in our lives if we first learn to STOP. Developing a habit of stopping is so absolutely rare and absolutely essential in our day and age. For one person it’s not turning on the radio during their commute; for another it’s leaving the iPod at home when you jog; for another it’s carving out ten minutes to sit alone in the early morning or late night.

It’s not too late. This Lent, choose silence!

To finish, I’ll share a poem that I wrote awhile back. It tells of a time in my life when I was uncomfortable with silence. I was 18 years old, and some friends had talked me into attending a retreat on the property of Camaldolese hermits—men who so prefer the richness and adventure of silence that they leave much else in life untended…

"Orchard"
by Br. Timothy Danaher, O.P.
 

We slept in the barn and listened to the rain
And woke to the morning chill
And through the bay door, I heard him pass outside
And lay there motionless until

I rose to glimpse him crossing the yard
His long nose and worn robes, as he tread
To his hut, putting wood smoke up on the wind
And at my feet was a note, he’d left in his stead

“Orchard down the path” was the phrase
So we laced our shoes and headed that way
Anything to escape the dreary silence
Of that wet and pointless and dreary day

I walked with thoughts of heavy golden fruit
And leaves turned red with sugar
And we laughed and joked and shouted in youth
Until our path met with another

We had missed our mark and doubled back
Then there at a bend in the way
Lay the old orchard, in overgrown turf
Unnoticed for it was shoddy, decrepit, and gray

As they had kept vigil, battling themselves
We rambled with dreams in our head
Only to find dead trees, rotting in the light rain
I should have stayed in and learned silence instead

✠

Br. Timothy Danaher entered the Order of Preachers in 2011. He is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he studied Theology and American Literature. Before Dominican life he worked as a life guard in San Diego, CA, and as a youth minister in Denver, CO.

What To Do About Lent? Part 2/2

Introduction

Fat Tuesday has come and gone. Mardi Gras is done. Celebrations to fun, food, drink, and more are over. Saints and Sinners have had their day. Now comes 40 days of Lent.

Yes, the bipolarity does not make sense. It's not consistent. Why not be one way or the other? For some reason it can't be. It's how people have dramatized the Christian Church's teachings on Christ's mortal life and coming death.

But if I had to choose I'm the more concerned by Christians celebrating Lent. With Fat Tuesday many are not hiding who they are but with Lent, 40 days of contrition seems contrived, silly, and unequal to the tasks assigned to it by the Church.

As a Pauline Apostle kind-of-guy let me suggest a few things about Lent, bypassing Mardi Gras altogether, and see what you think. I neither wish to err to the side of gluttony and hedonism nor to the side of legalism and asceticism.

I do wish we would be ourselves in all things - free of guilty and sin, and just as free of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. The season of Lent is starts  today so I thought I should share what began this Christian tradition.

In Part One, I asked the question why observe Lent if it just ends up being another religious event having no meaning in our lives? Here, in Part Two, I'd like to go at it in another way.

How Did Lent Begin and Why?

Lent marks the time of Jesus' preparation for His unjust trial, crucifixion and murder upon a Roman cross of agony and ignominy at the hands of unrepentant, proud religious leaders. In preparation for His brutish, unjust death Jesus was led of God into the wilderness for 40 days where he was tried by the devil, by the lusts of the flesh, and desires of the world. Jesus' wilderness experience marked his final preparation for leaving His earthly ministries.

Ministries marked by mercy, grace, healing, and forgiveness, all but forgotten by the gatekeepers of Judaism's faith traditions. These were the religious priests, teachers, and leaders of what was left of Judaism's old cultural beliefs and rotting temple system. These same religious leaders were by now corrupt, darken in understanding, unjust, blind to God, and stiff necked to God's Spirit.

Israel's spiritual poverty lay at the hands of her unfaithful ministers of God. Ministers who bore ingracious hearts. Hearts likened by Jesus as wide open sepulchers of religious legalism and hypocrisy. These traditionalists of the Jewish faith were concerned for their religious laws but ironically, wholly unfamiliar with God's grace, having forgotten why the Hebraic faith started in the first place.

These were false teachers of the law whom Jesus judged and condemned unworthy of God, unloving in their religious duties, and foully lusting for money, privilege and power. By calling out their sins and evil, Jesus consequently died by their "ceremonially washed" hands, marking them as "hypocrites to the end." A blasphemy of the highest order against the Spirit of God. And though we understand Jesus' sacrifice as God's own atoning death for self-righteous mankind awash in its own sin and evil, it was also at this time Jewish followers of Jesus began a new fellowship known as Christ-followers we now know as the Church of the living God.

A Church In Crisis

The Church is an organic institution birthed in the blood of Christ which is as conflicted today as it ever has been. Led by its own blind and unjust leaders who by their very words and deeds deny their God of Love and Salvation. And the sad truth is, the congregations of the church have allowed themselves to listen to these false Christian teachers by supporting them every step of the way.

So my question, "What To Do About Lent?" Should it be observed so as to heap greater indignity upon the Lord God of Grace and Mercy? Of Forgiveness and Truth? By heaping sin upon sin till it fills the nostrils of the Lord with the unholy putridness of rotting flesh and faith?

Or, do we observe Lent as a holy practice and demonstration of Godly love to one another rather than the hypocritical practices of self denial by which it has become? Just reread the pictures above... "fasting, self-denial, prayer etc.... I submit, Christianity means nothing if it cannot act humanely and with love to humanity through its various forms of social justice and ecological repair.

For it is we, as followers of Christ, who are to be the first to practice love unto others by preparing ourselves to serve and heal humanity beyond our border walls of churchliness or saintliness. The folly of holy diets, abstinence, and other works of the flesh, are not what Lent is about... though many think it is. Rather, Lent is about committing body and soul to serve God by serving others in selfless sacrifices of goodness, love, and forgiveness. Lent is not me-ward, it is others-ward.

The Practices of Lent

By practicing the "Lental" graces of love even as Christ loved and served the sinner - which by this statement is meant both the holy and the unholy sinners of this world - we are showing to God that His wilderness preparation for atoning death was not for naught. By learning to love one's fellow man in truth and by practice will honor the God of love and forgiveness who will be pleased by our actions.

However, following the typical self-ward deeds and teachings of unholy religions and religious rites of the flesh, as is found in Lent or Easter, is not pleasing to God. Christianity was "built" by God for others-service, not self-service, and especially not for silly hypocrisies proclaiming one's worthiness to God by self-denial of foods and candy while the heart remains as black and unpenitant as before.

We have by our actions turned holy communions with the Lord of man and earth into unholy festivals of self-righteousness and religious vanities. It's what Israel's religious leaders had become and now, the Christian church has found itself living out the same error. A church which deigns to rebuke Jesus and re-crucify her Lord all over again.

My friends, be done with these follies of the flesh. Repent and love. Repent and serve. Repent and be humbled by the Spirit who rids pride and flesh of its many spiritual cankers and cancers. This is the true message of Lent.

R.E. Slater

February 7, 2021

What To Do About Lent? Part 1/2

What To Do About Lent? Part 2/2

Lent

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This article is about the Western Christian 40-day period. For Lent in Eastern Christianity, see Great Lent. For other uses, see Lent (disambiguation).

The liturgical colour of the season of Lent is purple. Many altar crosses and religious statuary are traditionally veiled during this period in the Christian year.

Liturgical year
Pre-Christmas Advent (Western) Nativity Fast (Byzantine) Annunciation (Syriac) Christmas Epiphany Ordinary Time (Western) Pre-Lent Lent (Western)/Great Lent (Eastern) Paschal Triduum Easter Pentecost Ordinary Time (Western) Apostles (East Syriac) Summer (East Syriac) Apostles' Fast (Byzantine) Dormition Fast (Byzantine) Elijah–Cross–Moses (East Syriac) Dedication of the Church (Syriac)
v t e

Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving, and self-denial. This event is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Presbyterian, Oriental Orthodox, Reformed, and Roman Catholic Churches.^[1][2][3] Some Anabaptist and evangelical churches also observe the Lenten season.^[4][5]

The last week of Lent is Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday. Following the New Testament story, Jesus' crucifixion is commemorated on Good Friday, and at the beginning of the next week the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday recalls the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Lent, many Christians commit to fasting, as well as giving up certain luxuries in order to replicate the account of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ's journey into the desert for 40 days;^[6][7][8] this is known as one's Lenten sacrifice.^[9] Many Christians also add a Lenten spiritual discipline, such as reading a daily devotional or praying through a Lenten calendar, to draw themselves near to God.^[10][11] The Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christ's carrying the Cross and of his execution, are often observed. Many Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches remove flowers from their altars, while crucifixes, religious statues, and other elaborate religious symbols are often veiled in violet fabrics in solemn observance of the event. Throughout Christendom, some adherents mark the season with the traditional abstention from the consumption of meat, most notably among Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Anglicans.^[12][13][14]

Lent is traditionally described as lasting for 40 days, in commemoration of the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry, during which he endured temptation by Satan.^[15][16] Depending on the Christian denomination and local custom, Lent ends either on the evening of Maundy Thursday,^[17] or at sundown on Holy Saturday, when the Easter Vigil is celebrated.^[18] Regardless, Lenten practices are properly maintained until the evening of Holy Saturday.^[19]

Etymology

Lent celebrants carrying out a street procession during Holy Week, in Granada, Nicaragua. The violet color is often associated with penance and detachment. Similar Christian penitential practice is seen in other Christian countries, sometimes associated with fasting.^[20]

The English word Lent is a shortened form of the Old English word lencten, meaning "spring season", as its Dutch language cognate lente (Old Dutch lentin)^[21] still does today. A dated term in German, Lenz (Old High German lenzo), is also related. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'the shorter form (? Old Germanic type *laŋgito- , *laŋgiton-) seems to be a derivative of *laŋgo- long ... and may possibly have reference to the lengthening of the days as characterizing the season of spring'. The origin of the -en element is less clear: it may simply be a suffix, or lencten may originally have been a compound of *laŋgo- 'long' and an otherwise little-attested word *-tino, meaning 'day'.^[22]

In languages spoken where Christianity was earlier established, such as Greek and Latin, the term signifies the period dating from the 40th day before Easter. In modern Greek the term is Σαρακοστή (Sarakostí), derived from the earlier Τεσσαρακοστή (Tessarakostí), meaning "fortieth". The corresponding word in Latin, quadragesima ("fortieth"), is the origin of the terms used in Latin-derived languages and in some others. Examples in the Romance language group are: Catalan quaresma, French carême, Galician coresma, Italian quaresima, Occitan quaresma, Portuguese quaresma, Romanian păresimi, Sardinian caresima, Spanish cuaresma, and Walloon cwareme. Examples in non-Latin-based languages are: Albanian kreshma, Basque garizuma, Croatian korizma, Irish carghas, Swahili kwaresima, Tagalog kuwaresma, and Welsh c(a)rawys.

In other languages, the name used refers to the activity associated with the season. Thus it is called "fasting period" in Czech (postní doba), German (Fastenzeit), and Norwegian (fasten/fastetid), and it is called "great fast" in Arabic (الصوم الكبير – al-ṣawm al-kabīr, literally, "the Great Fast"), Polish (wielki post), Russian (великий пост – vieliki post), and Ukrainian (великий піст – velyky pist). Romanian, apart from a version based on the Latin term referring to the 40 days (see above), also has a "great fast" version: postul mare. Dutch has three options, one of which means fasting period, and the other two referring to the 40-day period indicated in the Latin term: vastentijd, veertigdagentijd and quadragesima, respectively.

Origin

Despite the existence of many fasting traditions before spring festivals, such as Easter, the origin of Lent is not certain. There are three prevailing theories: One, that it was created at the Council of Nicea in 325 and there is no earlier incarnation. Two, that it is based on an Egyptian post-theophany fast. Three, a combination of origins syncretized around the Council of Nicea.^[23]

Various Christian denominations calculate the 40 days of Lent differently. The way they observe Lent also differs.

Some named days and day ranges around Lent and Easter in Western Christianity, with the fasting days of Lent numbered

Roman Catholicism

In the Roman Rite since 1970, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday Evening (before the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper). This comprises a period of 44 days. The Lenten fast excludes Sundays and continues through Good Friday and Holy Saturday, totalling 40 days.^[24][25]

In the Ambrosian Rite, Lent begins on the Sunday that follows what is celebrated as Ash Wednesday in the rest of the Latin Catholic Church, and ends as in the Roman Rite, thus being of 40 days, counting the Sundays but not Holy Thursday. The day for beginning the Lenten fast is the following Monday, the first weekday in Lent. The special Ash Wednesday fast is transferred to the first Friday of the Ambrosian Lent. Until this rite was revised by Saint Charles Borromeo the liturgy of the First Sunday of Lent was festive, celebrated in white vestments with chanting of the Gloria in Excelsis and Alleluia, in line with the recommendation in Matthew 6:16, "When you fast, do not look gloomy".^[26][27][28]

During Lent, the Church discourages marriages, but couples may do so if they forgo the special blessings of the Nuptial Mass and reduced social celebrations.^[29]

The period of Lent observed in the Eastern Catholic Churches corresponds to that in other churches of Eastern Christianity that have similar traditions.

Protestantism and Western Orthodoxy

In Protestant and Western Orthodox Churches, the season of Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday to the evening of Holy Saturday.^[19][30] This calculation makes Lent last 46 days if the 6 Sundays are included, but only 40 days if they are excluded.^[31] This definition is still that of the Anglican Church,^[32] Lutheran Church,^[33] Methodist Church,^[18] and Western Rite Orthodox Church.^[34]

Eastern Orthodoxy and Byzantine Rite

Main article: Great Lent

In the Byzantine Rite, i.e., the Eastern Orthodox Great Lent (Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, meaning "Great 40 Days" and "Great Fast" respectively) is the most important fasting season in the church year.^[35]

The 40 days of Great Lent includes Sundays, and begins on Clean Monday and are immediately followed by what are considered distinct periods of fasting, Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, which in turn are followed straightway by Holy Week. Great Lent is broken only after the Paschal (Easter) Divine Liturgy.

The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains the traditional Church's teaching on fasting. The rules for lenten fasting are the monastic rules. Fasting in the Orthodox Church is more than simply abstaining from certain foods. During the Great Lent Orthodox Faithful intensify their prayers and spiritual exercises, go to church services more often, study the Scriptures and the works of the Church Fathers in depth, limit their entertainment and spendings and focus on charity and good works.

Oriental Orthodoxy

Among the Oriental Orthodox, there are various local traditions regarding Lent. Those using the Alexandrian Rite, i.e., the Coptic Orthodox, Coptic Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox, Ethiopian Catholic, Eritrean Orthodox, and Eritrean Catholic Churches, observe eight weeks of Lent.

In Ethiopian Orthodoxy, fasting (tsome) lasts for 55 continuous days before Easter (Fasika), although the fast is divided into three separate periods: Tsome Hirkal, eight days commemorating an early Christian figure; Tsome Arba, 40 days of Lent; and Tsome Himamat, seven days commemorating Holy Week.^[36][37][38] Fasting involves abstention from animal products (meat, dairy, and eggs), and refraining from eating or drinking before 3:00 pm.^[36] Ethiopian devotees may also abstain from sexual activity and the consumption of alcohol.^[36]

As in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the date of Easter is reckoned according to the Julian Calendar, and usually occurs later than Easter according to Gregorian Calendar used by Catholic and Protestant Churches.

Other related fasting periods

The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, most notably by the public imposition of ashes. In this photograph, a woman receives a cross of ashes on Ash Wednesday outside an Anglican church.

A Lutheran pastor distributes ashes during the Divine Service on Ash Wednesday.

The number 40 has many Biblical references:

• Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God (Exodus 24:18)
• Elijah spent 40 days and nights walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8)
• God sent 40 days and nights of rain in the great flood of Noah (Genesis 7:4)
• The Hebrew people wandered 40 years in the desert while traveling to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:33)
• Jonah's prophecy of judgment gave 40 days to the city of Nineveh in which to repent or be destroyed (Jonah 3:4).
• Jesus retreated into the wilderness, where He fasted for 40 days, and was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1–2, Mark 1:12–13, Luke 4:1–2). He overcame all three of Satan's temptations by citing scripture to the devil, at which point the devil left him, angels ministered to Jesus, and He began His ministry. Jesus further said that His disciples should fast "when the bridegroom shall be taken from them" (Matthew 9:15), a reference to his Passion.
• Since, presumably, the Apostles fasted as they mourned the death of Jesus, Christians have traditionally fasted during the annual commemoration of his burial.
• It is the traditional belief that Jesus lay for 40 hours in the tomb,^[27] which led to the 40 hours of total fasting that preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church^[39] (the biblical reference to 'three days in the tomb' is understood by them as spanning three days, from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, rather than three 24-hour periods of time). Some Christian denominations, such as The Way International and Logos Apostolic Church of God,^[40] as well as Anglican scholar E. W. Bullinger in The Companion Bible, believe Christ was in the grave for a total of 72 hours, reflecting the type of Jonah in the belly of the whale.^[41]

One of the most important ceremonies at Easter is the baptism of the initiates on Easter Eve. The fast was initially undertaken by the catechumens to prepare them for the reception of this sacrament. Later, the period of fasting from Good Friday until Easter Day was extended to six days, to correspond with the six weeks of training necessary to give the final instruction to those converts who were to be baptized.^{[citation needed]}

Converts to Christianity followed a strict catechumenate or period of instruction and discipline prior to receiving the sacrament of baptism, sometimes lasting up to three years.^[42] In Jerusalem near the close of the fourth century, classes were held throughout Lent for three hours each day. With the legalization of Christianity (by the Edict of Milan) and its later imposition as the state religion of the Roman Empire, its character was endangered by the great influx of new members. In response, the Lenten fast and practices of self-renunciation were required annually of all Christians, both to show solidarity with the catechumens, and for their own spiritual benefit.^{[citation needed]}

Associated customs

Statues and icons veiled in violet shrouds for Passiontide in St Pancras Church, Ipswich, England

There are traditionally 40 days in Lent; these are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbours).

However, in modern times, observers give up partaking in vices and often invest the time or money saved in charitable purposes or organizations.^[43]

In addition, some believers add a regular spiritual discipline, to bring them closer to God, such as reading a Lenten daily devotional.^[10] Another practice commonly added is the singing of the Stabat Mater hymn in designated groups. Among Filipino Catholics, the recitation of the epic of Christ' passion, called Pasiong Mahal, is also observed. In some Christian countries, grand religious processions and cultural customs are observed, and the faithful attempt to visit seven churches during Holy Week to pray the Stations of the Cross and pray at each church's Altar of Repose.^{[citation needed]}

In many liturgical Christian denominations, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday form the Easter Triduum.^[44] Lent is a season of grief that necessarily ends with a great celebration of Easter. Thus, it is known in Eastern Orthodox circles as the season of "Bright Sadness". It is a season of sorrowful reflection which is punctuated by breaks in the fast on Sundays.^{[citation needed]}

In cultivation of vegetables in a temperate oceanic climate in the northern hemisphere, Lent corresponds partly with the hungry gap.

Omission of Gloria and Alleluia

The Gloria in excelsis Deo, which is usually said or sung on Sundays at Mass (or Communion) of the Roman and Anglican rites, is omitted on the Sundays of Lent, but continues in use on solemnities and feasts and on special celebrations of a more solemn kind.^[45] Some mass compositions were written especially for Lent, such as Michael Haydn's Missa tempore Quadragesimae, without Gloria, in D minor, and for modest forces, only choir and organ. The Gloria is used on Maundy Thursday, to the accompaniment of bells, which then fall silent until the Gloria in excelsis of the Easter Vigil.^[46]

The Lutheran Divine Service, the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Churches, and the Presbyterian service of worship associate the Alleluia with joy and omit it entirely throughout Lent,^[47][48] not only at Mass but also in the canonical hours and outside the liturgy. The word "Alleluia" at the beginning and end of the Acclamation Before the Gospel at Mass is replaced by another phrase.

Before 1970, the omission began with Septuagesima, and the whole Acclamation was omitted and was replaced by a Tract; and in the Liturgy of the Hours the word "Alleluia", normally added to the Gloria Patri at the beginning of each Hour – now simply omitted during Lent – was replaced by the phrase Laus tibi, Domine, rex aeternae gloriae (Praise to you, O Lord, king of eternal glory).

Until the Ambrosian Rite was revised by Saint Charles Borromeo the liturgy of the First Sunday of Lent was festive, celebrated with chanting of the Gloria and Alleluia, in line with the recommendation in Matthew 6:16, "When you fast, do not look gloomy".^[26][27][28]

In the Byzantine Rite, the Gloria (Great Doxology) continues to be used in its normal place in the Matins service, and the Alleluia appears all the more frequently, replacing "God is the Lord" at Matins.

Veiling of religious images

A United Methodist minister prostrates at the start of the Good Friday liturgy at Holy Family Church, in accordance with the rubrics in the Book of Worship. The processional cross is veiled in black, the liturgical colour associated with Good Friday in Methodist Churches.

A crucifix on the high altar is veiled for Lent. Saint Martin's parish, Württemberg, Germany

In certain pious Christian states, in which liturgical forms of Christianity predominate, religious objects were traditionally veiled for the entire 40 days of Lent. Though perhaps uncommon in the United States of America, this pious practice is consistently observed in Goa, Malta, Peru, the Philippines (the latter only for the entire duration of Holy Week, with the exception of processional images), and in the Spanish cities: Barcelona, Málaga, and Seville. In Ireland, before Vatican II, when impoverished rural Catholic convents and parishes could not afford purple fabrics, they resorted to either removing the statues altogether or, if too heavy or bothersome, turned the statues to face the wall. As is popular custom, the 14 Stations of the Cross plaques on the walls are not veiled.

Crosses were often adorned with jewels and gemstones, the form referred to as Crux Gemmata. To keep the faithful from adoring the crucifixes elaborated with ornamentation, veiling it in royal purple fabrics came into place. The violet colour later evolved as a color of penance and mourning.

Further liturgical changes in modernity reduced such observances to the last week of Passiontide. In parishes that could afford only small quantities of violet fabrics, only the heads of the statues were veiled. If no violet fabrics could be afforded at all, then the religious statues and images were turned around facing the wall. Flowers were always removed as a sign of solemn mourning.

In the pre-1992 Methodist liturgy and pre-1970 forms of the Roman Rite, the last two weeks of Lent are known as Passiontide, a period beginning on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, which in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal is called the First Sunday in Passiontide and in earlier editions Passion Sunday. All statues (and in England paintings as well) in the church were traditionally veiled in violet. This was seen as in keeping with the Gospel of that Sunday (John 8:46–59), in which Jesus "hid himself" from the people.

Within many churches in the United States of America, after the Second Vatican Council, the need to veil statues or crosses became increasingly irrelevant and was deemed unnecessary by some diocesan bishops. As a result, the veils were removed at the singing of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo during the Easter Vigil. In 1970, the name "Passiontide" was dropped, although the last two weeks are markedly different from the rest of the season, and continuance of the tradition of veiling images is left to the discretion of a country's conference of bishops or even to individual parishes as pastors may wish.

On Good Friday, the Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist churches traditionally veiled "all pictures, statutes, and the cross are covered in mourning black", while "the chancel and altar coverings are replaced with black, and altar candles are extinguished". The fabrics are then "replaced with white on sunrise on Easter Sunday".^[49]

Pre-Lenten festivals

Main article: Shrovetide

Further information: Carnival, Mardi Gras, Swabian-Alemannic-Fastnacht, Maslenitsa, Pancake Day, and Baklahorani

The carnival celebrations which in many cultures traditionally precede Lent are seen as a last opportunity for excess before Lent begins. Some of the most famous are the Carnival of Barranquilla, the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Carnival of Venice, Cologne Carnival, the New Orleans Mardi Gras, the Rio de Janeiro carnival, and the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival.

The day immediately preceding Lent is variously called Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday"), Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday. Sometimes, it is the peak of the pre-Lenten festival, while sometimes it is largely occupied with preparations for Lent. The observances vary from culture to culture, and even from town to town.

Originally, in Lebanon and Syria, the last Thursday preceding Lent was called "Khamis el zakara". For Catholics, it was meant to be a day of remembrance of the dead ones. However, zakara (which means "remembrance", in Arabic) was gradually replaced by sakara (meaning "getting drunk" in Arabic), and so the occasion came to be known as Khamis el sakara, wherein celebrants indulge themselves with alcoholic beverages.

Fasting and abstinence

Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness (Jésus tenté dans le désert), James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum

Further information: Fasting § Christianity, and Christian dietary laws

Fasting during Lent was more prominent in ancient times than today. Socrates Scholasticus reports that in some places, all animal products were strictly forbidden, while various others permitted fish, or fish and fowl, others prohibited fruit and eggs, and still others permitted only bread. In many places, the observant abstained from food for a whole day until the evening, and at sunset, Western Christians traditionally broke the Lenten fast, which was often known as the Black Fast.^[50][51] In India and Pakistan, many Christians continue this practice of fasting until sunset on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with some fasting in this manner throughout the whole season of Lent.^[52]

For Catholics before 1966, the theoretical obligation of the penitential fast throughout Lent except on Sundays was to take only one full meal a day. In addition, a smaller meal, called a collation, was allowed in the evening, and a cup of some beverage, accompanied by a little bread, in the morning. In practice, this obligation, which was a matter of custom rather than of written law, was not observed strictly.^[53] The 1917 Code of Canon Law allowed the full meal on a fasting day to be taken at any hour and to be supplemented by two collations, with the quantity and the quality of the food to be determined by local custom. Abstinence from meat was to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays and Saturdays in Lent. The Lenten fast ended on Holy Saturday at noon. Only those aged 21 to 59 were obliged to fast. As with all ecclesiastical laws, particular difficulties, such as strenuous work or illness, excused one from observance, and a dispensation from the law could be granted by a bishop or parish priest.^[54] A rule of thumb is that the two collations should not add up to the equivalent of another full meal. Rather portions were to be: "sufficient to sustain strength, but not sufficient to satisfy hunger".^[55]

In 1966, Pope Paul VI reduced the obligatory fasting days to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, abstinence days to Fridays and Ash Wednesday, and allowed episcopal conferences to replace abstinence and fasting with other forms of penitence such charity and piety, as declared and established in his apostolic constitution Paenitemini. This was done so that those in countries where the standard of living is lower can replace fasting with prayer, but "...where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given..."^[56] This was made part of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which made obligatory fasting for those aged between 18 and 59, and abstinence for those aged 14 and upward.^[57] The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference decided to allow other forms of Friday penance to replace that of abstinence from meat, whether in Lent or outside Lent, suggesting alternatives such as abstaining from some other food, or from alcohol or smoking; making a special effort at participating in family prayer or in Mass; making the Stations of the Cross; or helping the poor, sick, old, or lonely.^[58] The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales made a similar ruling in 1985^[59] but decided in 2011 to restore the traditional year-round Friday abstinence from meat.^[60] The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has maintained the rule of abstention from meat on Friday only during Lent and considers poultry to be a type of meat but not fish or shellfish.^[61][62]

Many ELCA Lutheran Churches advocate fasting during designated times such as Lent,^[8][63] especially on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.^{[64][8][65][66]} A Handbook for the Discipline of Lent delineates the following Lutheran fasting guidelines:^[12]

1. Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday with only one simple meal during the day, usually without meat.
2. Refrain from eating meat (bloody foods) on all Fridays in Lent, substituting fish for example.
3. Eliminate a food or food group for the entire season. Especially consider saving rich and fatty foods for Easter.
4. Consider not eating before receiving Communion in Lent.
5. Abstain from or limit a favorite activity (television, movies etc.) for the entire season, and spend more time in prayer, Bible study, and reading devotional material.
6. Don't just give up something that you have to give up for your doctor or diet anyway. Make your fast a voluntary self-denial (i.e. discipline) that you offer to God in prayer.^[12]

However, Martin Luther criticized the Roman Catholic church of his era for creating new and stricter fasts over the preceding centuries.^[67] Not all Lutherans fast during lent, and churches which hold midweek services often hold dinners associated with the service.^[68]

The historic Methodist homilies regarding the Sermon on the Mount stress the importance of the Lenten fast, which begins on Ash Wednesday.^[69] The United Methodist Church therefore states that:

There is a strong biblical base for fasting, particularly during the 40 days of Lent leading to the celebration of Easter. Jesus, as part of his spiritual preparation, went into the wilderness and fasted 40 days and 40 nights, according to the Gospels.^[70]

Good Friday, which is towards the end of the Lenten season, is traditionally an important day of communal fasting for Methodists.^[71] Rev. Jacqui King, the minister of Nu Faith Community United Methodist Church in Houston explained the philosophy of fasting during Lent as "I'm not skipping a meal because in place of that meal I'm actually dining with God".^[72]

Many of the Churches in the Reformed tradition retained the Lenten fast in its entirety.^[7] The Reformed Church in America describes the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, as a day "focused on prayer, fasting, and repentance" and considers fasting a focus of the whole Lenten season,^[73] as demonstrated in the "Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline", found in the Reformed liturgy for the Ash Wednesday service, which is read by the presider:^[74]

We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ. I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent, by self-examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by practicing works of love, and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.^[74]

Good Friday, which is towards the end of the Lenten season, is traditionally an important day of communal fasting for adherents of the Reformed faith.^[71]

During the early Middle Ages, eggs, dairy products, and meat were generally forbidden. In favour of the traditional practice, observed both in East and West, Thomas Aquinas argued that "they afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust."^[75] Aquinas also authorized the consumption of candy during Lent, because "sugared spices" (such as comfits) were, in his opinion, digestive aids on par with medicine rather than food.^[76]

Jousting against Carnival is represented by a fat man on a beer barrel who wears a huge meat pie as headdress; Lent is represented by a thin gaunt woman on a cart (shown here) bearing Lenten fare: mussels, pretzels, and waffles. Oil painting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1558–1559).

In Spain, the bull of the Holy Crusade (renewed periodically after 1492) allowed the consumption of dairy products^[77] and eggs during Lent in exchange for a contribution to the cause of the crusade.

Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, reports that "in Germany and the arctic regions", "great and religious persons" eat the tail of beavers as "fish" because of its superficial resemblance to "both the taste and colour of fish". The animal was very abundant in Wales at the time.^[78]

In current Western societies the practice is considerably relaxed, though in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches, abstinence from all animal products including eggs, fish, fowl, and milk sourced from animals (e.g., cows and goats, as opposed to the milk of coconuts and soy beans) is still commonly practiced, so that, where this is observed, only vegetarian (or vegan) meals are consumed for the whole of Lent, 48 days in the Byzantine Rite. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s practices require a fasting period that is a great deal longer and there is some dispute over whether fish consumption is permissible.

In the tradition of the Western Catholic Church, abstinence from eating some form of food (generally meat, but not dairy or fish products) is distinguished from fasting. In principle, abstinence is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on every Friday of the year that is not a solemnity (a liturgical feast day of the highest rank); but in each country the episcopal conference can determine the form it is to take, perhaps replacing abstinence with other forms of penance.^[57][79][80]

Even during Lent, the rule about solemnities holds, so that the obligation of Friday abstinence does not apply on 19 and 25 March when, as usually happens, the solemnities of Saint Joseph and the Annunciation are celebrated on those dates. The same applies to Saint Patrick's Day, which is a solemnity in the whole of Ireland as well as in dioceses that have Saint Patrick as principal patron saint. In some other places, too, where there are strong Irish traditions within the Catholic community, a dispensation is granted for that day.^[81] In Hong Kong, where Ash Wednesday often coincides with Chinese New Year celebrations, a dispensation is then granted from the laws of fast and abstinence, and the faithful are exhorted to use some other form of penance.^[82]

After the Protestant Reformation, in the Lutheran Church, "Church orders of the 16th century retained the observation of the Lenten fast, and Lutherans have observed this season with a serene, earnest attitude."^[2] In the Anglican Churches, the Traditional Saint Augustine's Prayer Book: A Book of Devotion for Members of the Anglican Communion, a companion to the Book of Common Prayer, states that fasting is "usually meaning not more than a light breakfast, one full meal, and one half meal, on the forty days of Lent".^[13] It further states that "the major Fast Days of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, as the American Prayer-Book indicates, are stricter in obligation, though not in observance, than the other Fast Days, and therefore should not be neglected except in cases of serious illness or other necessity of an absolute character."^[83]

In many Christian countries, religious processions during the season of Lent are often accompanied by a military escort both for security and parade. Ceuta, Spain

Traditionally, on Sunday, and during the hours before sunrise and after sunset, some Churches, such as Episcopalians, allow "breaks" in their Lent promises. For Roman Catholics, the Lenten penitential season ends after the Easter Vigil Mass. Orthodox Christians also break their fast after the Paschal Vigil, a service which starts around 11:00 pm on Holy Saturday, and which includes the Paschal celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. At the end of the service, the priest blesses cheese, eggs, flesh meats, and other items that the faithful have been abstaining from for the duration of Great Lent.

Lenten traditions and liturgical practices are less common, less binding, and sometimes non-existent among some liberal and progressive Christians.^[84] A greater emphasis on anticipation of Easter Sunday is often encouraged more than the penitence of Lent or Holy Week.^[85]

Some Christians as well as secular groups also interpret the Lenten fast in a positive tone, not as renunciation but as contributing to causes such as environmental stewardship and improvement of health.^[86][87] Even some atheists find value in the Christian tradition and observe Lent.^[88]

Media coverage

During Lent, BBC's Radio Four normally broadcasts a series of programmes called the Lent Talks.^[89] These 15-minute programmes are normally broadcast on a Wednesday and have featured various speakers, such as John Lennox.^[90]

Holy days within the season of Lent

See also: Easter Triduum

A Methodist minister distributing ashes to confirmands kneeling at the chancel rails on Ash Wednesday

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Old Jerusalem on Golgotha, Mount Calvary, where tradition claims Jesus was crucified and died

There are several holy days within the season of Lent:

• Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity, such as the Lutheran Churches, Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, Methodist Churches, Reformed traditions, etc.
• In the Ambrosian Rite and the Mozarabic Rite, there is no Ash Wednesday: Lent begins on the first Sunday and the fast begins on the first Monday.
• The Sundays in Lent carry Latin names in German Lutheranism, derived from the beginning of the Sunday's introit. The first is called Invocabit, the second Reminiscere, the third Oculi, the fourth Laetare, the fifth Judica, the sixth Palm Sunday.
• The fourth Sunday in Lent, which marks the halfway point between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, is referred to as Laetare Sunday by Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and many other Christians, because of the traditional Entrance Antiphon of the Mass. Due to the more "joyful" character of the day (since laetare in Latin means "rejoice"), the priest, deacon, and subdeacon have the option of wearing vestments of a rose colour (pink) instead of violet.
• Additionally, the fourth Lenten Sunday, Mothering Sunday, which has become known as Mother's Day in the United Kingdom and an occasion for honouring mothers of children, has its origin in a 16th-century celebration of the Mother Church.
• The fifth Sunday in Lent, also known in some denominations as Passion Sunday (and in some denominations also applies to Palm Sunday) marks the beginning of Passiontide.
• The sixth Sunday in Lent, commonly called Palm Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent immediately preceding Easter.
• Wednesday of Holy Week, Holy Wednesday (also sometimes known as Spy Wednesday) commemorates Judas Iscariot's bargain to betray Jesus.^[91][92][93]
• Thursday of Holy Week is known as Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, and is a day Christians commemorate the Last Supper shared by Christ with his disciples.
• The next day is Good Friday, on which Christians remember Jesus' crucifixion, death, and burial.
• Saint Patrick's Day (March 17) always falls within Lent. The patron saint of Ireland, his solemnity is often considered a "day off" for Irish people during their Lenten fast.^{[94][95][96][97]}

Easter Triduum

This service consists of readings from the Scriptures, especially John the Evangelist's account of the Passion of Jesus, followed by prayers, veneration of the cross of Jesus, and a communion service at which the hosts consecrated at the evening Mass of the day before are distributed. The Easter Vigil during the night between Holy Saturday afternoon and Easter Sunday morning starts with the blessing of a fire and a special candle, and with readings from Scripture associated with baptism. Then, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is sung, water is blessed, baptism and confirmation of adults may take place, the people are invited to renew the promises of their own baptism, and finally, Mass is celebrated in the usual way from the Preparation of the Gifts onwards.In the Anglican, Lutheran, Old Catholic, Roman Catholic, and many other churches, the Easter Triduum is a three-day event that begins Maundy Thursday evening, with the entrance hymn of the Mass of the Lord's Supper. After this celebration, the consecrated Hosts are taken solemnly from the altar to a place of reposition, where the faithful are invited to meditate in the presence of the consecrated Hosts.This is the Church's response to Jesus' question to the disciples sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Could you not watch with me one hour?" On the next day, the liturgical commemoration of the Passion of Jesus Christ is celebrated at 3 pm, unless a later time is chosen due to work schedules.

Holy Week and the season of Lent, depending on denomination and local custom, end with Easter Vigil at sundown on Holy Saturday or on the morning of Easter Sunday. It is custom for some churches to hold sunrise services which include open air celebrations in some places.

Vestments

The chancel of a Lutheran church decorated with red paraments, the liturgical colour of the last week of Lent, Holy Week, in the Lutheran and Anglican Churches^[98]

In the Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and many Anglican churches, the pastor's vestments are violet during the season of Lent. Roman Catholic priests wear white vestments on solemnity days for St. Joseph (March 19) and the Annunciation (March 25), although these solemnities get transferred to another date if they fall on a Sunday in Lent or at any time during Holy Week. On the fourth Sunday in Lent, rose-coloured (pink) vestments may be worn in lieu of violet. Historically, black had also been used: Pope Innocent III declared black to be the proper color for Lent, though Durandus of Saint-Pourçain claims violet has preference over black.^[99]

In some Anglican churches, a type of unbleached linen or muslin known as "Lenten array" is worn during the first three weeks of Lent, crimson is worn during Passiontide, and on holy days, the colour proper to the day is worn.^[100] In certain other Anglican churches, as an alternative to violet for all of Lent except Holy Week and red beginning on Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday, Lenten array, typically made of sackcloth such as burlap and trimmed with crimson cloth, often velvet, is worn, even during Holy Week—since the sackcloth represents penance and the crimson edges represent the Passion of Christ. Even the veils that cover the altar crosses or crucifixes and statuary (if any) are made of the same sackcloth with the crimson trim.

See also

Christianity

• Fasting in the Eastern Orthodox Church
• Fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church
• Fasting and abstinence of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
• Fast of Nineveh
• People's Sunday
• Penance
• Quinquagesima
• Daniel Fast

Islam

• Ramadan

Judaism

• Counting of the Omer
• Tisha B'Av
• Yom Kippur

Modern interpretations

• Lent Event, asks people to donate the value of what they forego during Lent

General

• Asceticism

References

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89. ^ "Programmes: Lent Talks". BBC.
90. ^ Lennox, John (27 March 2012). "John Lennox's Lent Talk for Radio 4". RZIM. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
91. ^ "spy, n.", OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2013, Spy Wednesday n. in Irish use, the Wednesday before Easter.
92. ^ Packer, George Nichols (1893). "Our Calendar: The Julian Calendar and Its Errors, how Corrected by the Gregorian". Corning, NY: [The author]. p. 112. Retrieved 15 December2013. Spy Wednesday, so called in allusion to the betrayal of Christ by Judas, or the day on which he made the bargain to deliver Him into the hands of His enemies for 30 pieces of silver.
93. ^ McNichol, Hugh (2014). "Spy Wednesday conversion to Holy Wednesday". Catholic Online. Retrieved 10 May2014.
94. ^ "Is St. Patrick's Day always during Lent?". IrishCentral.com. 8 March 2019.
95. ^ "Are Catholics allowed to drink, eat meat on St. Patrick's Day during Lent?". IrishCentral.com. 26 February 2020.
96. ^ "A day off from Lent: St Patrick's Day traditions from the past". 15 March 2019 – via www.rte.ie.
97. ^ https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/03/time-end-game-st-patricks-day-lent/
98. ^ Gally, Howard E. (1989). Ceremonies of the Eucharist. Cowley Publications. p. 45. ISBN 978-1461660521. In recent decades there has been a revival of the ancient use of red (crimson or scarlet) for Holy Week among both Episcopalians and Lutherans. The Roman rite has restored the use of red only on Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
99. ^ Kellner, K. A. H. (1908). Heortology: A History of the Christian Festivals from Their Origin to the Present DayKegan Paul Trench Trubner & Co Limited. p. 430.
100. ^ The Church of England rubric states: "The colour for a particular service should reflect the predominant theme. If the Collect, Readings, etc. on a Lesser Festival are those of the saint, then either red (for a martyr) or white is used; otherwise, the colour of the season is retained." See p. 532 here