The Gesima Sundays Still Have Meaning

 

This bright yellow dandelion is "laughing" because the long-armed gardener doesn't have a plan: you don't get rid of a dandelion by yanking it. Dandelions have long carrot-like tap roots. The only thing that'll happen here is the stems and leaves will break off — the persistent root will remain. This gardener has real work ahead of him if he wants the dandelions gone.

And once again (at least on the old liturgical calendar) it is Septuagesima Sunday. It is  roughly seventy days to Easter. Sexagesima and Quinquagesima Sundays will follow. Lent is the prep time for Easter and the three "gesima" Sundays are a kind of prep to the prep. Too bad they were abolished in the throw-away 60's. I suppose they were thought to be redundant. But Lent is a major deal and we could do with some time to think about how we're going to approach it — something this gardener has failed to do going haphazardly into the weedy yard, grabbing ignorantly at this and that. 

The liturgical year reflects nature which takes place gradually, over time. The American way jumps right in. Spiritually that's dangerous — show up, get your ashes, get your wafer, get your blessing and off you go! I'd suggest getting rid of these prep Sundays was a sell out to the crazed, hurry-up culture which picked up steam in the 1960's. But nothing in the spiritual life is in a hurry. When I was a boy, a 45 minute sermon was almost normative. Later, in the seminary the instruction was, "If you can't say it in eleven minutes, don't bother." I met a seminarian more recently who told me, "Eight minutes is the maximum time for a homily."

Here's an idea for the prep Sundays: think about getting rid of opinionating during Lent. Americans opine about everything — I like this; not that. This is okay; that's not. This is acceptable; that's too far. Please review and rate our service. If there's anything that reflects this opinionating world gone out of control it's the whole mask "debate." I put "debate" in quotes not because it's a real debate but more an almost violent defense of why someone refuses to wear one, especially if science suggests a benefit. Tweeting — so out of control we have the phrase, Tweet Storm. 

I took an icon painting tutorial some years ago — myself, the instructor (an Orthodox priest's wife) and two women parishioners. The ladies talked non-stop while painting their icons: what the grandchildren were up to, what they saw in the stores, what they were going to do the rest of the day, where they got the coffee they brought in with them. The priest walked into the room one morning, watched a few moments (listened really) and then with a nice smile said as he turned to leave, "Where there are many words, sin cannot be avoided."  Some people might not like the word "sin" — they might be of the opinion it sounds too old-fashioned. Maybe better, "Where there are many words, spiritual wrong turns cannot be avoided." 

Septuagesima Sunday suggests we might start to listen more consciously to ourselves if we want to get-ready for Lent. Listen for the flood of opinions surrounding us, especially if we've got the news on all day or spend a lot of time on the phone. We can be a grabby culture, e.g. toilet paper, paper towels, sanitizer, coldcuts. Opinionating is a kind of grabbing or grasping after approval, recognition, power, self-reassurance or influence. 

We might "give up" opinionating this Lent and see what we discover about ourselves. I'd suggest it's infinitely harder to do than no chocolate, no wine and much more important and life-enhancing. Come Easter, someone might say, "You know, you're different." In fact, I'd suggest if no one ever says, "You know, something's different about you lately," I'm no better off than the gardener who doesn't get at the dandelion root. 

Septuagesima and Lent with Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro 1830-1903

This past Sunday used to be called Septuagesima, the first of the three pre-Lenten Sundays with the engaging Latin names. Septuagesima means roughly, seventy - seventy days until Easter. These are get ready Sundays; a kind of front porch to Lent. 

For many people, the world is moving too fast. "I don't have time to think," people complain. So these three Sundays (Sexagesima and Quinquagesima to follow) serve as a kind of heads up. Lent is a big deal; it needs time - like the winter turning to spring takes time. For me, it's regrettable that these three preparatory Sundays were dropped from the liturgical calendar in the late 1960's. Now Ash Wednesday just shows up - ready or not. 

But okay, the three Sundays can still inform and help us along the inner way. In 2017 we contemplated forty paintings created by the young Russian painter, Issac Levitan. This Lent we might reflect upon the paintings of the Danish-French Impressionist, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). 

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said: "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance." The artist then isn't so much interested in doing what a camera would have done, if cameras existed centuries ago, but to open windows within to the unconscious, eternal, deeply human, spiritual things. Pissarro's new technique or new approach, called Impressionism, may help us with this. Even the word, Impressionism or Impressionist, gives us a clue: "What impression does this painting make upon me?"  A person can go through a lifetime and never ask a question like that.

To that end, we'll see that apart from an occasional far-distant church, Pissarro doesn't employ overtly religious themes or images at all. But he believed everything was beautiful, and his response to beauty can spark insight and awareness, thought and feeling within ourselves these approaching Lenten days. 

Pissarro said, "Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing." Sounds like an invitation to wake up in a sleepy world. And isn't that what Spring is - a great waking up? Jesus is often telling us to wake up, and every account of his healing a blind person is an invitation to see! 

I might invite you then to spread the word - that folks might find something new and different here this coming Lent which begins with Ash Wednesday, March 6. 

Pre-Lent and Some Thoughts On Fasting

The Temptation in the Wilderness ~  Briton Riviere 1840-1920

On the old calendar (prior to 1969) today, and the next two Sundays comprise what used to be called, Pre-Lent. Today is Septuagesima Sunday (roughly 70 days until Easter), then Sexagesima Sunday (roughly sixty days until Easter), then Quinquagesima Sunday (roughly fifty days until Easter). The three Sundays had a penitential feel to them, violet was introduced and the Lenten fast begun. I imagine they were dropped from the calendar, the liturgical reformers thinking the forty days of Lenten-fast was sufficient. 

One writer likened the three Sundays to arriving early for a dinner and before ringing the bell, hanging out on the front porch for awhile. The Pre-Lent message is: Head's up! Pay attention! Have a think on what we're setting out to do. Not a bad idea for a culture that's in high gear and arrives at everything poorly planed and out of breath. 

A young Greek monk said to me once, "The West has completely lost its ascetical dimension." He meant we've lost our sense of spiritual disciplines, especially prayer and fasting. My experience suggests he was onto something. Remember this Gospel scene:

When they reached the multitude, a man came up and knelt before him: Lord, he said, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic, and in great affliction; he will often throw himself into the fire, and often into water. I brought him here to thy disciples, but they have not been able to cure him. Jesus answered, Ah, faithless and misguided generation, how long must I be with you, how long must I bear  with you? Bring him here before me. And Jesus checked him with a word, and the devil came out of him; and from that hour the boy was cured. Afterwords, when they were alone, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Why was it that we could not cast it out? Jesus said to them, Because you had no faith. I promise you, if you have faith, though it be but like a grain of mustard seed, you have only to say to this mountain, Remove from this place to that, and it will remove; nothing will be impossible to you. But there is no way of casting out such spirits as this except by prayer and fasting. Matthew17:14-21

Jesus is telling us that prayer and fasting are efficacious: they are restorative, powerful and effective. We'd be more successful in spiritual things if we fasted. And the Greek monk was saying that Western Christianity has essentially given up on that. 

When I was a boy the fast before receiving Holy Communion was from midnight the night before. Then in about 1958 it was changed to a three hour fast. In our own time it has been reduced to one hour, which no one ever alludes to, figuring we spend the better part of an hour in church before receiving Communion anyway. The purpose of the Eucharistic fast was to replicate the excited loss of appetite early Christians experienced when they knew they'd be receiving the Eucharist on Sunday morning. That sounds like something worth preserving.

A friend recently observed that human beings seem to have been made for fasting, that when we lived in caves there were no food-laden tables and storage pantries. We were hunters and gather-ers. If the hunt was successful and the berries and nuts in season, we ate, if not, we fasted until food was available. 

When out in the woods or fields looking for food, hunters had to be hyper-alert, totally attentive, otherwise they'd miss the food that might have been right under their noses.  It seems that while fasting may slow down our physical metabolism, in some way it helps us to become more astute, better at hearing, better at seeing. Our survival depended on it.

Many great saints were fast-ers and as a result their inner spiritual capacities were heightened and honed. St. Seraphim of Sarov was a Russian hermit who lived in the forest for decades. When he came out of his reclusion and the long solitary fasting, he was thronged with people, greeting each of them individually as, "My joy!" What did he see in them that we usually miss about newcomers and strangers? Perhaps for his fasting, he was able to see their souls, pregnant with God-presence and energy. 

When St. Maximilian Kolbe was put in the Nazi starvation bunker, he led his fellow prisoners in the singing of hymns to the Mother of God. Imagine through starvation, having the presence of mind to ward off madness and to sing to heaven. It was the Nazi guards, not Maximilian, who became mad - so crazed by the priest's enduring song that they had to finish him off with carbolic acid. 

So what's the point? I suppose just to consider these things as Lent draws near. Maybe the young Greek monk was correct in his observation of Western Christians and we can do something personal to turn that around. But whatever we do we must do it for the Lord. Religions are susceptible to minimalism, the nasty spiritual disease which insults God and makes religion look ridiculous. 

As a newly ordained deacon I was sent to a comfortable parish with a large rectory. On Ash Wednesday (a no-meat day) a huge platter of seafood came out of the kitchen for the clergy: clams, mussels, lobster, shrimp, crab, scallops. The pastor was delighted and at once told the cook, "This is delicious, make sure we have this again for Good Friday." Oh, we can do better. Let's be done with religious formalities, empty of spirit.

Septuagesima ~ Getting Ready For Lent

Agapanthus just before blooming

It is Septuagesima Sunday on the old liturgical calendar. Septuagesima means Easter is nine weeks away - roughly seventy days. It is the first of three transition Sundays (the other two being Sexagesima and Quinquagesima) escorting us from the Christmas-Epiphany season to Lent. It is the Sunday when the Alleluia disappears and the vestment color changes to violet. The lovely Agapanthus buds in the photo above clue us in.

Septuagesima gives us a heads up. Get ready! Don't be caught off guard! Have a plan! Give Lent some thought now so you can get off to a running start come Ash Wednesday. 

Many Catholics haven't got an idea of Lent that transcends some kind of food deprivation. Americans don't do well with food: we eat too much or we eat poorly, and that's causing lots of problems. So maybe having some Lenten aspect that includes less food isn't a bad idea. 

But I have something else in mind - something that will help us to become (even a little) new by Easter. And that's the point of Christianity anyway, isn't it - to become a new kind of human person. To that end I'd propose fasting from complaining, blaming and grumbling for forty days. This is serious stuff. C.S. Lewis wrote about it in The Great Divorce.

"Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others...but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then, there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud."

I've met people who I'd venture wouldn't know what to talk about if they weren't complaining, blaming or grumbling. It seems to be in our national DNA as we were founded or birth-ed out of an angry rebellion hundreds of years ago. But for all our talk about being a nation of religious values we often betray that with our complaining, grumbling and blaming. 

So this Lenten Fast could be very difficult for many of us. It would require a kind of self-awareness or self-observation we're not accustomed to. Why bother? Because like a lousy diet, it's simply not good for us, and it isn't Christ-ly and it seems to reflect an un-grateful spirit.

The biblical number forty simply means a long time. So we have this long Lenten season coming up which gives us plenty of time to get at it and to make a change. I knew a dirty-mouthed man who one Lent promised to put a dollar in the jar every time he cursed. By Easter the habit had been broken. A lot can happen in forty days.

But I think when it comes to growing and evolving ourselves, Christians often don't go deeply. We try to discipline ourselves with corrective virtues (forms of practicing goodness) but the underlying problem, even pathology, remains.  A dry drunk is an alcoholic who hasn't tasted a drop, but who remains arrogant, vain, nasty, bossy, dishonest. That's because there's been no inner investigation of oneself.

So if we try the no complaining, no blaming, no grumbling fast this Lent we might ask ourselves along the way:

• Why do I complain so much?
• Do I even hear myself?
• Why do I so often resort to blaming?
• What has happened to me that grumbling is so much a part of my lifestyle? 
• What fears might be attached to this Lenten approach? 

"Don't even go there," was a phrase Americans over-used a lot in the recent past. But there are lots of places where we SHOULD go - albeit they are interior places left locked up, hidden and un-investigated. Hint: we do a lot of this grumbling and complaining because of original sin. And original sin is not about lust, or gluttony or disobedience, but  about power. 

But not to be discouraged or put off. Look at the splendid, get ready Agapanthus buds at the start of this post. They reflect the beauty of possibility, transition and change!

Septuagesima

UNTIL THE CALENDAR REFORMS OF 1969, today would have been called Septuagesima Sunday - the first of three Sundays in a row with curious Latin names that served as a countdown to the start of Lent. Septuagesima translates seventy - roughly seventy days to Easter. 

The world spends a great deal of time getting ready for the things that matter to it: years of preparing for the Olympics, wedding preparations, a young lawyer wanna-be preparing for the boards, preparing one's face and hair for a major date, preparing the room for the baby's arrival, preparing for vacation, preparing for surgery, preparing for retirement...(oh, good God) preparing for the Superbowl.

So I think it's a mistake that the church dropped the three Sundays of Lenten preparation. Instead it's just imagined that we'll jump into Lent on Ash Wednesday and debate whether the Sundays of Lent "count." An unfortunate compromise with the flip side of the culture: zooming along and breathlessly playing catch-up.

Anyway, here on this blog-page we can acknowledge Septuagesima and its liturgical theme of humanity exhausted and bereft, the world's misery in need of a remedy. The Adam and Eve account in the book of Genesis tells us that somewhere along the line we spoiled things with wrong choosing, wanting to be equal to God in a bite and losing our God-Given Paradise. We need God for our repair. 

Sin weighs heavily upon us: lies and power abuse, exploitation and corruption, violence and death as our problem-solver, hatred and revenge. The Gospel at Mass today used to be Matthew 20: 1-16 - the vineyard owner who gave the same pay to those who worked only briefly  as those who'd worked through the long, hard and hot hours of the full day. The message: Be glad and get on board, in response to God who gives to us so generously, as God wills and as we need.

Septuagesima Sunday says it's not too soon to start preparing for Lent - considering how we might reflect God's own project of  love. And Therese of Lisieux lays it out for us.

"True charity consists in putting up with one's neighbor's faults, never being surprised by her weakness, and being inspired by the least of her virtues."

I've changed the pronouns from him to her only because Therese lived in a close community of twenty-one1 women and we must be absolutely certain that she knew exactly what she was talking about because of the challenges that kind of community would have presented. The picture above illustrates it. Laundry was done at a shallow pool, each nun squeezed up against the other, wooden paddles beating dirty clothes, water flying. Indeed, Therese writes of one laundry partner (deliberately?) splashing her with dirty water and Therese coming to imagine that it was the priest sprinkling her with Holy Water at the start of Mass! Therese wrote:

"If the people knew what went on in this house, they would burn it to the ground."

"Sometimes I feel as if I'm living inside a volcano."

In another place Therese writes of a nun in chapel who continually clanked her rosary against the wooden bench or whose loose false teeth clacked away.Therese imagining it was music. Or the cantankerous old nun who castigated Therese for walking her either too quickly or too so slowly. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," we say.

So maybe this year we can grow our Lent with three practical life-steps given to us by this much loved saint, essential ingredients for the God-remedy of our world:

• putting up with the faults of others
• taking no surprise at the weaknesses of others
• taking inspiration at even the least of virtues we discern in others.

This is harder than the most rigorous fasting from desired desserts and drink and a dimension of Lent most ignored or forgotten.

Intercessions ~ Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Septuagesima):

Sts Primus & Felician ~ Slovenia

We pray for Pope Francis and religious leaders around the world,/ asking for them to be upheld and strengthened in their efforts of religious understanding and reconciliation./ We pray to the Lord.

There are traumatized cultures in the world where people have not known security and peace for generations./ We pray for them and for the turning of violent,/ hateful hearts./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for the world's children where they are starving,/ diseased,/ un-educated,/ displaced./ We pray to the Lord.

We call to mind those who live in prisons and for their renewal,/ those struggling with or lost to addictions,/ for family and friends overwhelmed by troubles,/ depression or anger./ We pray to the Lord.

For those we need to forgive/ and for the healing of old memories and wounds./ We pray to the Lord.

We ask for gifts of patience,/ a generous spirit,/ and a new awareness of God's presence in our lives./ We pray for those who are unhappy with themselves/ and those who have made themselves sick with worry./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for those who have died this week: asking for them/ the gifts of God's light and life./ And for those who mourn and bury the dead throughout the world./ We pray to the Lord.

A Teresian Plan for Lent

Therese is second from the left  ~ with the paddle and cloth

UNTIL THE CALENDAR REFORMS OF 1969, today would have been called Septuagesima Sunday - the first of three Sundays in a row with curious Latin names that served as a countdown to the start of Lent. Septuagesima translates seventy - roughly seventy days to Easter. 

The world spends a great deal of time getting ready for the things that matter: years of preparing for the Olympics, wedding preparations, a young lawyer wanna-be preparing for the boards, preparing one's face and hair for a heavy date, preparing the room for the baby's arrival, preparing for vacation, preparing for surgery, preparing for retirement...

So I think it's a mistake that the church dropped the three Sunday's of Lenten preparation. Instead it's just imagined that we'll jump into Lent on Ash Wednesday and debate whether the Sundays of Lent "count." An unfortunate compromise with the flip side of the culture: zooming along and breathlessly playing catch-up.

Anyway, here on this blog-page we can acknowledge Septuagesima and its liturgical theme of humanity exhausted and bereft, the world's misery in need of a remedy. The Adam and Eve Genesis account tells us that somewhere along the line we spoiled things with wrong choosing, wanting to be equal to God in a bite and losing our God-Given Paradise. We need God for our repair. 

Sin weighs heavily upon us: lies and power abuse, exploitation and corruption, violence and death as problem-solver, hatred and revenge. The Gospel at Mass today used to be Matthew 20: 1-16 - the vineyard owner who gave the same pay to those who worked only briefly  as those who'd worked through the long, hard and hot hours of the full day. The message: Be glad and get on board, in response to God who gives to us so generously, as God wills and as we need.

Septuagesima Sunday says it's not too soon to start preparing for Lent - considering how we might reflect God's own project of  love. And Therese of Lisieux lays it out for us.

"True charity consists in putting up with one's neighbor's faults, never being surprised by her weakness, and being inspired by the least of her virtues."

I've changed the pronouns from him to her only because Therese lived in a close community of 21 women and we must be absolutely certain that she knew exactly what she was talking about because of the struggles that kind of community would have required. The picture above illustrates it. Laundry was done at this kind of shallow pool, each nun squeezed up against the other, wooden paddles beating dirty clothes, water flying. Indeed, Therese writes of one laundry partner (deliberately?) splashing her with dirty water and Therese coming to imagine that it was the priest sprinkling her with Holy Water at the start of Mass! Therese wrote:

"If the people knew what went on in this house, they would burn it to the ground."

"Sometimes I feel as if I'm living inside a volcano."

In another place Therese writes of a nun in chapel who continually clanked her rosary against the wooden bench or whose loose false teeth clacked away. And Therese imagining it was music. Or the cantankerous old nun who castigated Therese for walking her either too quickly or too so slowly. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," we say.

So maybe this Lent we can accompany our giving up with three practical life-steps given to us by this much loved saint, essential ingredients for the God-remedy of our world:

• putting up with the faults of others
• taking no surprise at the weaknesses of others
• taking inspiration at even the least of virtues we discern in others.

This is harder than the most rigorous fasting from desired food and drink and the dimension of Lent most ignored or forgotten.