Saint Benedict & Lent

This is a blog replay from 2008. As preparing for Lent this year, I find these themes from Saint Benedict helpful in posturing my heart and life for the season. I decided to go ahead and share it again.

The book, A Monastic Year: Reflections from a Monastery by Brother Victor-Antoine D’Avila-Latourrette, reflects on the seasons of the church year as lived out in the monastery. This particular monastery lives under the Rule of St. Benedict. The reflections on Lent begin by quoting St. Benedict, “the life of a monk ought always to have the character of a Lenten observance.” For St. Benedict, Lent was the model for the monastic life of those striving to live under the Rule.

St. Benedict proposes the following Lenten practices in the Rule. Perhaps these timeless Lenten principles from St. Benedict’s Rule can help us rediscover fresh and renewed meaning and experience in Lent.

1) Refraining from sin.

“Lent should be a time for us, to do battle, a time to fight not only the great temptations but, perhaps more importantly, our subtle faults, the seemingly small habitual sins we consent to every day….Lent is a propitious time to take inventory and a close look at our bare selves, to see the obstacles on out journey to God, things which should be eliminated from our lives.”

2) Prayer with tears.

The parable of the Pharisee and the publican is Luke 18:9-14 is significant to consider. “Jesus teaches that the Pharisees prayer, filled with arrogance and pride, is not pleasing to God. In contrast, the humble prayer of the publican, a tax collector, who recognizes his sinfulness and makes appeal to God’s mercy with inner tears, is the kind that touches the heart of God….Our Lenten prayer, like the publican’s, ought to then be a humble and tearful prayer of compunction, a prayer of simplicity and trust, not in ourselves, but in the loving-kindness and tenderness of our God.”

3) Holy reading.

We “should develop a continual hunger, almost an addiction, for the Word of God, for through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit never ceases to speak and educate us…Lent is this wonderful, particularly well-suited time for reading and listening to the voice of God in his Word.”

4) Repentance.

“At the threshold of Lent, when placing the ashes on our foreheads, the priest repeats the Gospel words, ‘Repent and believe in the Gospel’ (Mark 1:15)….Repentance, the work of the Holy Spirit in the innermost part of our hearts, implies a long sustained spiritual effort. It is true that conversion and repentance are lifelong tasks, but Lent provides us with an exclusive period to work on it intensely. Lent is indeed a “school of repentance.”

5) Abstinence from food.

“Christ used fasting, and encouraged his followers to practice fasting, as a way of learning the self-control and personal restraint we need to keep a humble and wise perspective on our Christian life….The process can be painful and wearying, but when carried out under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it becomes life-giving and a source of powerful grace in our individual lives.”