CV NEWS FEED // In a commentary written on the occasion of the beginning of Lent, Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, warned against contemporary tendencies trying to diminish the true meaning of Lent: penance and conversion.
In the article titled “Let Lent be Lent” Barron first criticized the recent decision of the Anglican Cathedral of Canterbury to host a “rave party” as a way to attract people to allegedly “experience” the historic Cathedral where St. Thomas Becket was martyred.
Barron quoted the dean of the cathedral, Dr. David Monteith, who “justified” the disco party by saying, “it’s always joyous to see them discover this incredible place anew and on their own terms.”
“The whole point, of course, is that cathedrals are not meant to be experienced ‘on our terms’,” Barron wrote. “They are meant to draw us out of ourselves into the contemplation of a higher world. They are designed to disorient us and to compel us to see things differently.”
Shifting his focus to the season of Lent, Barron wrote, “Lent is, par excellence, a time of prayer. So let us, during this holy season, cultivate ‘cathedral space’ in our lives; please let us not permit the secular and the ordinary to dominate that space.”
“When the priest or minister applies the ashes to someone’s forehead, he says either ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’ or ‘Repent and believe the Good News,’” Barron continued:
In other words, the ashes are not meant as a sign of welcome. They are meant to be the starkest possible reminder that we will die and that our bodies, even if they are young and beautiful, will inevitably return to the dirt of the earth and that we are sinners who have rebelled against God and who need to radically turn our lives around.
Recalling the Church in which he came of age, a post-conciliar Church of “joy, peace, God’s love and forgiveness, the goodness of all things,” Barron pointed out that Lent is still “a privileged time during the liturgical year when we are encouraged to come to grips with our sin, our mortality, our moral frailty, and our need for forgiveness.”
“In a word, the ashes are dark, alarming, somber—and meant to be so,” he added.
“Not everything has to be chirpy and upbeat in the religious order. In point of fact, I believe that one reason so many have opted out of the Church is that our presentation of the faith has become superficial, unreal, nicey-nicey,” Barron wrote. “So, as we enter into these forty days, I say, ‘Let Lent be Lent!’”
