Baptised into Lent

A reflection for the 1st Sunday, Lent, Year B. The readings are Genesis 9:8-15; Psalm 25; 1 Peter 3:18-22 and Mark 1:12-15.

When you think of Lent, what do you think of? Do you think of feasting or fasting? Do you think of partying or penance? I tend to think of Lent as a time of preparation – we have 40 days to prepare for Easter, which is the most important feast for Christians. Easter is more important than Christmas; it’s more important than any other feast because that’s when we celebrate the Resurrection. That’s when we celebrate that Christ, through his passion, death and resurrection, destroyed death forever, so that you and I can go and be with him in Heaven.

So we are preparing for Heaven.

And, as with anything that is important, preparing means hard work: it means doing things that we don’t feel like doing and not doing things that we feel like doing. It means sacrifice. That’s why it’s a time of penance – that’s why we emphasize prayer, fasting and alms-giving.

So Lent is a time of penance and a time of sacrifice.

A few years ago, however, I learned that there is another element to Lent that is often overlooked: Lent is a baptismal time. The Second Vatican Council document Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium #109 says that:  “The season of Lent has a twofold character: primarily by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, it disposes the faithful, who more diligently hear the word of God ad devote themselves to prayer, to celebrate the paschal mystery. This twofold character is to be brought into greater prominence both in the liturgy and by liturgical catechesis.”

 And so, Lent has two equally important strands: a baptismal one and a penitential one – we tend to over-emphasize the penitential one.  

So, this is what I am going to suggest that you do this Lent. For the next 40 days, while you listen to the readings at Mass and when you pray with the readings at home (which you all should be doing, especially during Lent), pay special attention to those baptismal themes. I bet you’ll find a lot.

Look at today’s readings. The first reading is the end of the story of Noah and the flood. This is all about baptism! Our sins are buried in the waters and we rise up out of the water into new life. That is baptism.  And you don’t need to take my word for it, because the author of the first letter of St. Peter says it: The story of the flood pre-figures baptism. That’s what it’s all about. And then in the Gospel – every Lent, no matter which year, the Gospel on the first week, whether it is from Matthew, Mark or Luke, is the story of Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness. This year we heard Mark, and it’s very short: The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness… .what did Jesus do right before? What happened that he received the Spirit that drove him into the wilderness? He was baptised! At baptism, he receives the Holy Spirit, the Spirit drives him into a time of preparation, which leads him to his Mission.

The same thing happens to us at Baptism. We receive the Holy Spirit and it should drive us to a time of preparation.  If you are baptised as an adult, some of that preparation happens before baptism, but most of us are baptised as babies and part of that Baptismal liturgy specifically asks the parents and godparents to bring up the children in the faith: to prepare them. Why? Do they can be ready for their mission.

That’s what happens to Noah too. After the flood, that time of preparation, God makes a Covenant with him. What’s a Covenant? A Covenant is not just any kind of agreement or contract. A Covenant is an agreement that cannot be broken. That’s why every time God enters into an agreement with us, it’s a Covenant, because God never breaks his promise. We do. We are not great at keeping our end of the bargain. But God never breaks an agreement.

In fact, this is going to be your second task this Lent while you’re listening to and praying with the readings looking for the baptismal themes: Also look for the Covenants:  This year particularly, today we hear about the Covenant with Noah. Next week we’ll hear about the Covenant with Abraham. The following week it’s the Covenant with Moses. Then we’ll hear about the Covenant with the Babylonian exiles and in the fifth Sunday of Lent we’ll hear that beautiful passage from Jeremiah about God renewing his Covenant : I will be your God and you will be my people. Did you listen to today’s Psalm? “Your ways are love and truth to those who keep your Covenant.” And then at Easter we celebrate the New Covenant. Actually, that’s what we celebrate at every Mass.

So Lent is a penitential time; a baptismal time and a time of Covenant.

At baptism, God enters into a Covenant with us. He does his part: he sends his Spirit, he cleanses us from Original Sin, he sends us his Grace and then we have to do our part. We do our  little ritual with the water, the oils, the candle – but then we have to LIVE OUR BAPTISM.

That’s what makes it a Covenant. And that’s also what makes it a Sacrament because a Sacrament has to be lived. When we live our Sacraments, Christ is made present in our lives and in the lives of all those around us. And how do we live our baptism? We live our lives as children of God; in everything we say and do we look to God and in everything we do and say, we look to Heaven and we help others get there too.

Lent is a time that the Church gives us to stand back and take a wide view, to take stock of how we are doing. It’s like a Sabbath. Are we praying enough? Do we need some fasting to help us in our prayer and to help us stop thinking so much about ourselves? Are being generous with others especially those who do not have as much as we do? Why? Because we are preparing for Easter. Those who are being received into the Church or Baptised at the Easter Vigil are really focusing on how to live as Christians. This year, I encourage you to come to the Easter Vigil, especially if you’ve never been. It’s a beautiful liturgy, the mother of all liturgies and whether someone is being baptised or not, we will all renew our baptismal promises – those promises that our parents made for us when we were baptised (if we were baptised as children) and we will sprinkled with Holy Water, recalling our own baptism – and we will say, “this is our faith; we are proud to profess it!”

Lent is a time of penance and sacrifice and it is also a time to recall our baptism and to do better at living our baptism: through prayer, fasting and sacrifice, and through alms-giving and extra generosity, we prepare for Easter and for the resurrection: We prepare for Heaven!