A Beijing Lent
It perhaps not a very improving thing to admit, but I have let Lent pass me by thus far. It would be easy to make excuses. This year, Ash Wednesday was the eve of the Chinese New Year holiday, and its hard to fast and feast at the same time. It does not help that Catholics in China are dispensed from the traditional beginning of Lent observances when they coincide with their most important family holiday. Even the ashes of Ash Wednesday are usually given out on the following Sunday. If a good beginning is half the battle, I feel as if I have lost the Lenten war!
It is not as if I don’t need Lent. The battle with the flesh, even when disconnected from a narrowly fire and brimstone interpretation, is no more complete in me than it is in any other human being. For most of my adult life I have been carrying around the same rag bag of water-the-milk sins and years of Lenten fasting, praying and alms giving seem to have brought only temporary improvements. This year, excuses aside, I seemed to have little zeal for the struggle to overcome self. The ordinary mortifications recommended seem only like Band Aids on a deep wound. Yet I am equally certain that ultimately, it is the grace of God which brings the transformation I am looking for, not the absence of sugar in my coffee. Caught between the two poles, I seemed to have neither enthusiasm, to wear the token ribbon of sackcloth nor the sense of the dramatic to have gone for something more radical. I need Lent alright but somehow, when it began, I was unwilling to hear its call to re-conversion. To a degree that I find surprising, I seemed to have no confidence in the possibility of grace assisted personal transformation. Truth be told, the cultural clash of Chinese feast and Lenten Fast is an excuse, the reality is that I did not want to face into the challenge which Ash Wednesday and the forty days that follow represents.
However, one doesn’t “escape” from Lent all that easily. Working with a Catholic organization, the day always begins with the celebration of the Eucharist. Even in the truncated liturgical possibilities of our rather utilitarian chapel, the purple of the stoles, the absence of the alleluia and the very spare chants, all remind one that we are in Lent. For me though, it is the daily Mass readings which are pulling me back from my Lenten ennui. The daily, gently invitations to conversion, the reminders of God’s enduring love and His patience with the sinner, all chips away at my disillusion with the possibility for personal growth. Even in Chinese, when I can often miss the nuances, the power to reach into my heart, which the proclaimed Word has, surprises me. I find myself unable to sustain my Lent-lite position in the face of Its quiet insistence.
Usually, my Lent begins all ashes and gung ho for Jesus, before spiralling down to an uninspiring finish. This year the process has been skewed, inviting a gentler, less programmed engagement with this important season. It is consoling to realise that those who are hired at the sixth or ninth hour will not be discriminated against when the distribution comes. It is too early to know what the fruits will be: all I can say is that this year has been different. Who would have thought that in this country with an unenviable record on religious freedom, would be where I would experience a True Lent.