Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Lenten season, with all its history of biblical and Christian tradition, its theological meaning and liturgical origin, is also, necessarily, a time of judgement. The traditional practices, of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, necessarily become, for those who do not live them superficially, judgement of one's life, of what really counts, on how much effort we put into what is not so necessary after all and how our life could be more committed and consequently, more authentic.
But besides our own judgement on our way of life, Lent is a powerful call to the reality of “judgement itself”, that truth of faith which announces that every person is responsible for his or her actions; therefore - from the latin “respondeo” - we have to answer to the Lord of life, at the moment of individual judgement after death, and at the universal judgement at the end of time.
As the Holy Father Benedict XVI recalls in his encyclical Spe Salvi “From the earliest times, the prospect of the Judgement has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience, and at the same time as hope in God's justice.” (n. 41).
In this sense Lent, with its rites, its call to sobriety and pious penitential practices etc., is a good school of judgement and hope, a “holy time”, in which to re-educate or educate consciences to recognise the presence of the mystery in our lives.
Religious art, when authentic, has always expressed this awareness and certainty: “In the arrangement of Christian sacred buildings, which were intended to make visible the historic and cosmic breadth of faith in Christ, it became customary to depict the Lord returning as a king—the symbol of hope—at the east end; while the west wall normally portrayed the Last Judgement as a symbol of our responsibility for our lives—a scene which followed and accompanied the faithful as they went out to resume their daily routine” (Ivi).
Therefore judgement should be lived not as something threatening, gloomy, far from daily life. Judgement, of which the Season of Lent is a reminder, is simply “the glow” of responsibility and therefore, we could say, a hymn to freedom which is called to work for what is true and what is good, with love.
“God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value..” (Spe Salvi n. 44). May Lent be a time for effective and affective rediscovery of this certainty. (Agenzia Fides 5/3/2009; righe 37, parole 492)
