Father Pierre Amar is a priest in Yvelines and editor on padreblog.fr.
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LE FIGARO. - Mid-Lent was an opportunity, in the past, to break the fast in order to sell off the stocks of eggs which were kept for no more than twenty days. What is the deeper meaning of this event? Can mid-Lent continue to be celebrated and perceived as a holiday?
Abbot Pierre AMAR. -
Mid-Lent is not really a celebration but rather a sort of date on the clock: we are already halfway through, we must maintain hope and courage.
Easter joy is coming!
Joy of knowing that death will not have the last word and that there will be reunions.
Joy also for the future baptized, since Easter night coincides with the baptism of thousands of adults, after a journey which lasted approximately two years.
There will be more than 5,000 in 2023, a figure that is constantly increasing.
The number forty also has its own symbolism: forty weeks is the duration of gestation.
Forty years is the duration of the exodus of the Hebrew people in the desert, a people who went from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land.
And the Gospels record that Jesus spent forty days fasting before performing his first miracle – when he changed water into wine at a wedding in Cana, Galilee.
Also read: Lent, an asceticism that the younger generation applies with renewed faith
As for eating eggs in mid-Lent - most often in the form of pancakes - it is indeed a way to sell off stocks.
Rest assured, the eggs will return at Easter, in chocolate or superbly decorated, as our Eastern Christian brothers know how to do.
Regardless, I invite readers to experience this Lenten process, alone or in a group.
They can also join many online proposals.
At the end of a singular inner journey, made of prayers and meditations, renunciations and deprivations, they will experience the joy of Easter!
Each year, this Lenten season is presented as a time of prayer and penance to draw closer to God through spiritual combat. Why do Christians need this spiritual warfare? Should they not pray and do penance all year round?
A man said to me on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent:
“During Lent, I am going to try to be more kind to my wife and my children
. ”
I replied:
“Oh no, that’s all year round!”
.
Of course, you have to get better every day.
And this concerns us all!
But we need more intense periods, where we redouble our efforts.
In this sense, Lent acts as a springboard.
It’s a kind of
more sustained
“internship” , a period that will help us.
A lot of things are wrong in this world and we would legitimately like to change that.
What if we started in the first possible place: ourselves?
This is what Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said.
A journalist asked him what needs to change in the world.
His response was none other than
“You and me”
.
How can we understand fasting and mortification in a society that values overconsumption, immediacy and the satisfaction of one's desires, and even though the Bible reminds us that the body is the
“temple of the Holy Spirit”
?
Why make yourself suffer?
It’s true: there’s no need to hurt yourself!
And besides, why deprive yourself of the good things desired by God?
For forty days, the Church instead suggests sorting out our lives, reviewing the place of certain objects, certain desires, certain bonds which can tie us up and prevent us from being truly free.
The heart of Man, let us recognize it, is an immense box of desires.
Good desires, which pull us upwards and make us do extraordinary things, but also less good ones, which weigh down our lives.
Lent is a time of questioning all our desires, a kind of internal cleaning.
Storage is now!
Those who live Lent with generosity silently contest the totalitarian law of desire which is the most powerful source of our commercial society.
Abbot Pierre Amar
For example, it has never been forbidden to eat chocolate during Lent!
But let's ask ourselves the question: am I free from chocolate?
Or in relation to cigarettes, television, social networks... Or in relation to this smartphone, this beer tap or this coffee machine?
The list is not exhaustive !
Let's try it: let's remove all this for forty days.
It's very informative and you learn a lot about yourself.
An article in Le
Figaro
recently devoted an interesting report on people who are trying a
“digital detox”
, over the space of a weekend or more.
All testify to a newfound freedom and a peace that is establishing itself.
As we accept being less focused on our desires, we will logically be more attentive to the outside world.
To the Other first, then also to others.
This is why we evoke Lent as a more intense time of prayer but also of sharing, an opportunity to join and share the distress of those who lack everything.
In parishes, moreover, numerous
“Lenten campaigns”
are beginning to support works such as Secours catholique, Restos du coeur, persecuted Christians... Ultimately, Lent is not a sad time: it frees us from all these inner chains that are within us, which paralyze us and which prevent us from changing.
It’s a time to reclaim our freedom!
And those who live it with generosity silently contest the totalitarian law of desire which is the most powerful source of our commercial society.
How do you explain, in your opinion, that Lent receives little media coverage? Is this only linked to the dechristianization of our society?
There is certainly a loss of historical and cultural landmarks since we even speak of the “Ramadan of Christians”… proof - if there ever was one - of the decline and loss of influence of Catholicism.
However, the spirit of Ramadan and that of Lent have nothing to do with each other!
Of course, there are external similarities such as fasting, prayer or almsgiving.
But the DNA of Lent is radically something else.
The thirty days of Ramadan are an end in themselves, it is a feat of asceticism which is worth for its own sake, an effort to be made for God.
The Eid festival, at the end, celebrates this success.
Also read: Camille Lecuit: “There is a committed Catholic youth who thirst for others”
Christian Lent is not at all a goal in itself.
It is entirely focused on Easter.
It is a period of preparation and inner change to welcome an event that shook humanity: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The forty days of Lent allow us to better welcome this event, which is a free gift from God.
We never deserve God's free gift at any time.
It is not the consequence of our actions, even beautiful and virtuous ones.
God owes us nothing: everything he gives us is free.