“The ‘pace’ of Lent”

As a significant season in the Church’s Liturgical Calendar, Lent can best be viewed and appreciated through its emphasis on “pace.” This is set within, or even beyond (with adjustments as varying traditional ways of counting the span of the season would somehow suggest), the 40 days that characterize the season. Hence it is aptly called “Cuaresma” for “forty,” from the Latin Quadragesima.

One creative nuancing for the Season of Lent is by way of reckoning the musical tempo called “Lento” which literally means “slow” or slowing down.

During Lent one can really sense a kind of a slowing down. This is so appropriate a context for more reflective prayer and meditation. One can even add that this slowing down pace is fitting and proper for the most needed rhythm against a fast-paced and the rat-race attitude of life nowadays. When events happen so fast as time flies so swiftly, we need some form of respite to get a sense of everything significant amidst the fleeting realities around us.

For this reason, there is a variety of activities and modes of making the Lenten Season fruitful. Here we are talking about retreats, recollections and seminars, among other value-laden activities. There are also the basic observances like fasting and abstinence, almsgiving and works of charity, and most of all prayer.

Taking time to pray – not just finding time, but really “making” the time to pray is a tall order not only for this season, but for the rest of our lives!

What is in prayer that we need to properly understand?

Here is a Lent-worthy excerpt from the Treatise on Prayer by Tertullian, priest:

“…Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good.

“Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.

“All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look out to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.

“What more need be said on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed…” [Cap. 28-29: CCL 1, 273-274].