These Forty Days

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.” 1 Peter 2:21

In between Jesus’ baptism by John and Jesus’ public ministry are forty days (the biblical number symbolic of testing or trail). During this time Jesus fasted and prayed. He is driven by the Spirit to do this in preparation for his mission. At the end of these forty days he is tempted by THE devil and Jesus so defeats him that the devil waits to tempt him again in the garden of Gethsemane.

So what? Well there are three. The Church uses the forty days of Lent as a simulation chamber for three main groups in preparation for the Easter sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. We are to use these forty days as Jesus did to prepare for our mission that we received at our Baptism.

The first group, of course, are the unbaptized and those seeking to be Catholic from other denominations of Christianity. They will turn from reflection and application of the Gospels to transforming themselves by turning away from sin and being faithful to that Gospel that they have proclaimed. They will publicly profess their desire to become not just Christian but Catholic. They will listen to the Gospel’s of Lent and apply them directly to their own lives. They will decide what parts of their lives to keep because they are consistent with this way of life and what things they must forsake because they want to follow Jesus to Jerusalem and to the cross.

The second group is those children who have had the profound advantage of being baptized as infants, given the example of Catholic parents and instructed in the Catholic faith by trained catechists. They too seek the Easter sacraments so that they might fulfill their mission in the Body of Christ and Communion of Saints. They will celebrate their first reconciliations launching a life time of security that nothing can keep us from the love of Christ and then they will participate in the Risen Lord by taking the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.

The third group of course is the rest of us. We need to hammer out our halos and spruce up our baptismal garments. We too must turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel. The Church equips us with three traditional disciplines: prayer, fasting and almsgiving or as the Blessed Mother likes to put it prayer, sacrifice and good works. If we give any attention to the spiritual dimension of our lives, we are already practicing these disciplines because we are imitating Christ. Lent is an opportunity to step it up a notch. If we have become distracted from the spiritual dimension of our lives this is the opportunity to incorporate this fourth dimension created by the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.

This is why we were called, all of us who are Catholics, to be the visible, contemporary face of Christ in our world by following in his steps.