HISTORY OF LENT by Dom Guéranger

[Dawn Marie]

HISTORY OF LENT
by Dom Guéranger

The forty days' fast which we call Lent, is the Church's preparation for Easter, and was instituted at the very commencement of Christianity. Our blessed Lord Himself sanctioned it by fasting forty days and forty nights in the desert; and though He would not impose it on the world by an express commandment (which, in that case, could not have been open to the power of dispensation), yet He showed plainly enough by His own example that fasting, which God had so frequently ordered in the old Law, was to be also practiced by the children of the new.

The disciples of St. John the Baptist came one day to Jesus, and said to Him: “Why do we and the pharisees fast often, but Thy disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them: “Can the children of the Bridegroom mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast.”

Hence we find it mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles how the disciples of our Lord, after the foundation of the Church, applied themselves to fasting. In their Epistles, also, they recommended it to the faithful. Nor could it be otherwise. Though the divine mysteries whereby our Savior wrought our redemption have been consummated, yet are we still sinners: and where there is sin, there must be expiation.

The apostles, therefore, legislated for our weakness, by instituting, at the very commencement of the Christian Church, that the solemnity of Easter should be preceded by a universal fast; and it was only natural that they should have made this period of penance to consist of forty days, seeing that our divine Master had consecrated that number by His own fast. St. Jerome, St. Leo the Great, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Isidore of Seville, and others of the holy fathers, assure us that Lent was instituted by the apostles, although, at the commencement, there was not any uniform way of observing it.

The Latin Church, which even so late as the sixth century kept only thirty-six fasting days during the six weeks of Lent (for the Church has never allowed Sundays to be kept as days of fast), thought proper to add, later on, the last four days of Quinquagesima, in order that her Lent might contain exactly forty days of fast.

God grant that we may succeed, in the short history we are now giving, in showing to the faithful the importance of the holy institution of Lent! Its influence on the spiritual life, and on the very salvation, of each one among us, can never be over-rated.

Lent, then, is a time consecrated in an especial manner to penance; and this penance is mainly practiced by fasting. Fasting is an abstinence, which man voluntarily imposes upon himself as an expiation for sin, and which, during Lent, is practiced in obedience to the general law of the Church.

There is not a people or a religion, how much soever it may have lost the purity of primitive traditions, which is not impressed with this conviction, that man may appease his God by subjecting his body to penance. St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory the Great remark that the commandment put upon our first parents in the earthly paradise was one of abstinence; and that it was by their not exercising this virtue that they brought every kind of evil upon themselves and upon us their children. The life of privation, which the human race, the king of creation, had thenceforward to lead on the earth (for the earth was to yield to him nothing of its own natural growth, save thorns and thistles), was the clearest possible exemplification of the law of penance imposed by the anger of God on rebellious man.

Fasting consists, in part, in the depriving ourselves of some portion of our ordinary food, inasmuch as it allows only one meal during the day. It consists also in the abstinence from such nourishments as have been given to man by God out of condescension to his weakness, and not as absolutely essential for the maintenance of life. This would include first of all, flesh-meats, which have been permitted for the support of man’s deteriorated bodily strength since the time of the Deluge, when God mercifully shortened man’s life that so he might have less time and power for sin. The privation, then, of flesh-meats, greater or less according to the regulations of the Church, is essential to the very notion of fasting. Thus for many centuries eggs and milk products were not allowed, because they come under the class of animal food; even to this day they are forbidden in the eastern Churches.

It was the custom with the Jews in the old Law, not to take the one meal allowed on fasting days till sunset. The Christian Church adopted the same custom. It was scrupulously practiced for many centuries, even in our western countries, but about the ninth century some relaxation began to be introduced in the Latin Church, as some adopted the practice of taking their repast at about three o'clock in the afternoon. The relaxation gradually spread; for in the tenth century we find the celebrated Ratherius, bishop of Verona, acknowledging that the faithful had permission to break their fast at that hour. By the twelfth century, the custom of breaking one's fast at the hour of None everywhere prevailed, as we learn from Hugh of Saint-Victor.

But even the fast till three o'clock was found too severe, and a still further relaxation was considered to be necessary. At the close of the thirteenth century, we have the celebrated Franciscan, Richard of Middleton, teaching that those who break their fast at mid-day, that is, at twelve o’clock, are not to be considered as transgressing the precept of the Church; and the reason he gives is that the custom of doing so had already prevailed in many places, and that fasting does not consist so much in the lateness of the hour at which the faithful take their refreshment, as in their taking but one meal during the twenty-four hours.

The fourteenth century gave weight, both by universal custom and theological authority, to the opinion held by Richard of Middleton. Alexander Hales and St. Thomas had sought to prevent the relaxation from going beyond the hour of None; but their zeal was disappointed, and the lightened discipline was established, we might almost say, during their lifetime.

But whilst this relaxation of taking the repast so early in the day as twelve o'clock rendered fasting less difficult in one way, it made it more severe in another. The body grew exhausted by the labors of the long second half of the twenty-four hours; and the meal that formerly closed the day and satisfied the cravings of fatigue, had already been taken. It was found necessary to grant some refreshment for the evening, which was called a collation.

(The word was taken from the Benedictine rule, which, for long centuries before this change in the lenten observance, had allowed a monastic collation. St. Benedict's rule prescribed a great many fasts over and above the ecclesiastical fast of Lent; but it made this great distinction between the two: that whilst Lent obliged the monks as well as the rest of the faithful to abstain from food till sunset, these monastic fasts allowed the repast to be taken at the hour of None. But, as the monks had heavy manual labor during the summer and autumn months, which was the very time when these fasts occurred, the abbot was allowed by the rule to grant permission to his religious to take a small measure of wine before Compline, as a refreshment after the fatigues of the afternoon. It was taken by all at the same time, during the evening reading, which was called conference -- in Latin, collatio. Hence this evening monastic refreshment took the name of collation.)

Thus did the decay of piety, and the general deterioration of bodily strength among the people of the western nations, infringe on the primitive observance of fasting. To make our history of these humiliating changes anything like complete, we must mention one more relaxation. For several centuries, abstinence from flesh-meat included likewise the prohibition of all animal-derived food (called milk-meats, such as eggs and dairy products), with the single exception of fish, which, on account of its cold nature was always permitted to be taken by those who fasted. Every sort of milk-meat was forbidden.

Dating from the ninth century, the custom of eating milk-meats during Lent began to be prevalent in western Europe, more especially in Germany and the northern countries. The Churches of France resisted this innovation up to the sixteenth century; but in the seventeenth they too yielded, and milk-meats were taken during Lent throughout the whole kingdom.

But this grant for the eating of milk-meats during Lent did not include eggs. Here the ancient discipline was maintained, at least this far, that eggs were not allowed, save by an indult which had to be renewed each year.

Invariably do we find the Church seeking, out of anxiety for the spiritual advantage of her children, to maintain all she can of those penitential observances whereby they may satisfy the divine justice. It was with this intention that Pope Benedict XIV, alarmed at the excessive facility wherewith dispensations were then obtained, renewed in 1745, the prohibition of eating fish and meat at the same meal on fasting days.

The same Pope, whose spirit of moderation has never been questioned, had no sooner ascended the papal throne than he addressed an encyclical letter to the bishops of the Catholic world, expressing his heartfelt grief at seeing the great relaxation that was introduced among the faithful by indiscreet and unnecessary dispensations. The letter is dated May 30, 1741. We extract from it the following passage:

“The observance of Lent is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the cross of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God's glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.”

More than a hundred years have elapsed since this solemn warning of the Vicar of Christ was given to the world; and during that time, the relaxation he inveighed against has gone on gradually increasing. How few Christians do we meet who are strict observers of Lent, even in its present mild form! [Words would surely have failed that holy Pope, as well as Dom Guéranger, had they anticipated the present law of the Church, calling for a Lenten fast of only two days, on each of which the faithful sit down to eat three times!] And must there not result from this ever-growing spirit of immortification, a general effeminacy of character and lack of self-restraint which will lead, at last, to frightful social disorders? [Again, words would fail.]

The sad predictions of Pope Benedict XIV are but too truly verified. Those nations, among whose people the spirit and practice of penance are extinct, are heaping against themselves the wrath of God, and provoking His justice to destroy them by one or other of these scourges: civil discord, or conquest. The word of God is unmistakable: unless we do penance, we shall perish. But if our ease-loving and sensual generation were to return, like the Ninivites, to the long neglected way of penance and expiation, who knows but that the arm of God, which is already raised to strike us, may give us a blessing and not chastisement?