SPRING CLEANING?

The current Catholic guidelines for Lent emphasise its triple nature: fasting, prayer and sharing. I have never been good at fasting, perhaps because there was a famine in occupied Holland when I was 3. Giving up chocolate and similar tiny deprivations have always seemed jejune, yet one should do (without) something. The best Lenten fast I ever had was a few years ago when, recognising myself to be choleric in nature, I gave up anger: not only did it work but it was of genuine spiritual value. This Lent I’ve gradually given up Scotch whisky, though abandoning prejudices would have been even harder and much more valuable . . . .    

The Catholic texts I’ve read stress the fact that all three exercises, and Lent generally, are intended to clear our inner decks of the clutter that comes between us and God. This I sympathise with. Prayer, the second item, would appear at first to be a much more direct line to God than fasting; yet John Donne already noted in his Devotions how difficult silent prayer on one’s own can be. “I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.” The mind’s capacity for distraction is so extensive that one wonders if it is not diabolical.

            As for sharing, enough envelopes from worthwhile charities turn up in my mailbox that an increased level of giving is easy; yet then one wonders if that ease itself is not a snare and delusion. Shouldn’t it be harder, less pleasant, more sacrificial? That depends, I conclude, on the purpose of the exercise. If the purpose is to torment oneself, as in flagellation, then indeed one should do something more painful or at least demanding, like working in a soup-kitchen or hospital visiting. If the purpose is to bring the greatest possible amount of help to many, significant giving to good and well-run charities probably accomplishes that better. If the underlying (Lenten) purpose is to bring one closer to God and His values, each such gift should perhaps be accompanied by a serious and prolonged meditation on the people it is helping.

            Can one wish people a “Happy Lent”? It seems like a contradiction in terms, or even a sarcasm. Yet spring cleaning a house, while tiring, is a joyful experience, as everyone who has tried it knows. If we see  Lent not as a gloomy penitence but as a spiritual spring cleaning before Easter, it takes on a different colour.

            But. 

            But, says an inward voice, what about the Cross? The recent CNN documentary on  Jesus used what looked to me like clips from Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” to remind us of the sheer gory and humiliating horror of crucifixion. They were perhaps overdoing it: the expression on the Roman soldiers’ faces is likelier to have been one of bored distaste than the Gothic leers we saw on the screen. But it was a useful reminder that elegant crucifixes hide a damned unpleasant truth. Being nailed to two chunks of wood and left to die of choking was the execution method for rebellious slaves. In some way or other, we need to share in this, however great the distance.

            The prayer of the Angelus asks “that, as we have known the incarnation of thy son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection.” Our cheerful spring cleaning metaphor breaks down on Good Friday. So what do we do?

            This, I think, is where prayer shows itself to be superior to all but the most extreme forms of fasting and almsgiving. For through prayer we can move to Galilee, to Jerusalem, even to Golgotha. Prayer, when supported by the twin pillars of reading and meditation, is the temple where we can share in the suffering, the silence, and finally the morning joy of Easter. It is the house of the Lord which we must first clear of its merchants, its money-changers, its ox and ass, its doves, its noise of fly and its rattling of coach; when we have done that, it is the house of the Lord into which, with the Psalmist, we can be full of joy to go.

            On Good Friday I try always to follow the old Dutch Protestant custom of listening to Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Doing this with real concentration is one of the finest ways I know of living that extraordinary day of pain, sacrifice and salvation. At its end, one is emptied of all emotion as the church’s tabernacle is empty of the host, and open as its door. I’ll try and write a little more about this in the days to come.