By Rev. Fr. Cosmas Uzochukwu Okafor
Human life is stratified in seasons and times. The book of Ecclesiastes says there is time for everything. We are in a time of healing – Lenten season. We are blessed. Get ready to be healed. Be healed NOW!
Lenten season is specifically a forty day spiritual journey marked with penance. It is a season hallmarked by prayer, fasting and almsgiving. It is characterized by 40 days of spiritual renewal, signifying the 40 days of Jesus in the desert. It is therefore, a season of desert experience.
We withdraw from the world into the desert with Jesus the Son of God, who as our Saviour longs to share his victory with us. It starts with Ash Wednesday celebration (with the imposition of ash) and ends on Holy Thursday afternoon (excluding Sundays, the day of the Lord).
“The act of putting on ashes sybolises our fragility and mortality as well as our need to be redeemed by the mercy of God” (The Daily Missal, 184). Lent is a season of serious preparation for Easter –the greatest feast of the liturgical year. Easter is a journey that starts with the celebrations of the memorial of the passion and death of Christ.
Thus, Lent is a period of contemplation on the passion and death of Jesus Christ. The cross becomes the centrality of our reflection in lent. The veneration of the cross finds its expression in the celebration of the Eucharist, in the liturgical readings, in the liturgical homilies and sermons, in the devotion to the Stations’ of the Cross, in other prayerful devotions in the Church, in the visitation of the sick, the poor, and those in prison.
Lent is also the season of reflection on our own suffering. When we contemplate in a special way the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we are led sublimely to the meaning of our own experience of suffering.
The ultimate meaning of human suffering is that it is a continuation of the passion of Jesus and a way in which we are associated to the mystery of salvation and life. Our suffering on the other hand makes us more sensitive to the sufferings of others. This spirit of lent could be found in our Liturgical celebrations during lent.
To convey seriously the pensive mood and character of this season of lent, and to prepare us for the celebration of the paschal mystery, there is no floral decoration of the sanctuary during liturgical celebrations, Gloria and Alleluia are all omitted in the liturgy, the liturgical colour becomes purple or violet, the use of musical instrument in the liturgy is only employed to support the singing, liturgical dances are also omitted.
These symbolic gestures that are either omitted or diminished during this season, speak one language, thus; participate in the activities of the Church especially the liturgy and retreat from the pleasures of the world in order to access the Graces wrought by Christ through his Passion, death and resurrection. Lent therefore is a season of Grace. What is grace? It is the supernatural gift from God to human beings.
The Liturgy is the chief source of grace as well as other sacraments. “For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal Mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ” (Sacrosanctum Conciliun, 61).
This essentially is why we should participate in the liturgy more actively this season. Preface I of Lent always reminds us of this fact, thus it reads; “ . . . and participating in the mysteries by which they have been reborn, they may be led to the fullness of grace that you bestow on your sons and daughters . . .” (The Roman Missal, 517).
As sons and daughters, one of the numerous graces Christians receive during Lenten season is healing. Healing leads to health. The two concepts are both derived from the same root “hale” which means wholeness, being whole or sound. To heal is the verb while Health is the noun.
Health according to the World Health Organisation is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Healing is the process of restoring health. Healing “can refer to physiologic processes that mend an injury, and also to the emotional, spiritual, or psychological processes that relieve stress, achieve acceptance and promote hope” (Archelle Georgiou, caringbridge.org). Healing is about taking action towards achieving health. It is the choice to get health.
The range of healing is equally broad just as the range of health is not just absence of disease but involves all the dimensions of life, namely physical, mental, spiritual, and social dimensions. From the spiritual and religious standpoint, one could easily accept that the spiritual, being part and parcel of human dimensions is apparently one of the major areas that demands healing.
It is important to state here that the spiritual is as important as the other dimensions of healing. Thus, in his 1986 General Audience, Pope St. John Paul II declared that humans are spiritual and corporal beings (16th April, 1986). Man and woman are spiritual beings and this spiritual part of man and woman should not be overlooked.
Both spiritual and physical healing are interrelated. Spiritual healing affects positively the physical healing for the spiritual malady weighs heavily on the physical wellness. When Christ healed the paralytic, he first told him, “My son, your sins are forgiven”, before he finally told him, “. . . rise take up your pallet and go home” (Mark 2:1-12). Jesus Christ went from the spiritual to the physical.
Another episode is the healing of the man who suffered for 38 years. Having healed him, Jesus met him in the temple later and said to him, “see you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you” (John 5:14). This shows that spiritual wellbeing is paramount and Lenten Season is another germane season to be healed.
Advent Season, Christmas Season, Easter Season and Ordinary Season of the liturgical year memorialize the redemptive Mysteries of Christ and their efficacy in sanctifying the people of God. Therefore, they are also periods of prayers and healing. Nevertheless, Lenten season is majorly a period of spiritual restoration and rejuvenation. Since lent is significantly the season of penance and reconciliation, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, it is an auspicious time to be healed spiritually. Our Rite of Penance teaches that reconciliation of penitents may be celebrated in all liturgical seasons.
However, it clearly states that, “Lent is the season most appropriate for celebrating the sacrament of penance. Already, on Ash Wednesday, the people of God hear the solemn invitation, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” It is therefore, fitting to have several penitential services during Lent, so that all the faithful may have an opportunity to be reconciled with God and their neighbours and so be able to celebrate the paschal mystery in the Easter Triduum with renewed hearts” (Ordo paenitentiae, 13).
Everyone should as a matter of urgency and serious desire for healing, use this period of penance and examine oneself thoroughly. It is after the examination of conscience that one avails oneself of the opportunity to reconcile with God and human. This Reconciliation starts with sacramental confession. It is through this Sacrament of reconciliation that we are eligible to partake in the Holy Eucharist, the Body of Christ and be nourished spiritually and physically.
“The Eucharist is presented to the faithful as a medicine by which we are freed from our daily faults and preserved from mortal sin” (Eucharisticum Mysterium 35). It is pertinent to remark that accessing the sacraments during this season is paramount in order to receive the grace of healing. Let us all get healed spiritually this lent by maximizing the triad-spiritual pillars of lent, namely ; Prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving fundamentally help the faithful to fight against the three worst enemies of the children of God. These three enemies of God’s faithful are: the devil, the flesh and the world. No one could be adequately healed spiritually and physically without taming these enemies.
It is time to set aside some time of prayer in order to make room for God in our lives to show us mercy, to fight our battles (cf. 2 Chronicles 20:15 ) and to heal our infirmities (Psalm 103:3). Fasting on the other hand helps us to win heavenly grace (Dict. of Liturgy, 11). It helps us to deny ourselves the pleasures of this world “for man shall not live on bread alone” (Matthew 4:4, Deut 8:3). We fast in order to conquer the wiles of Satan just as Jesus Christ conquered Satan after fasting and praying for 40 days in the desert.
Fasting (or abstinence) technically is abstention, whether complete or partial, from food and drink for religious reasons (Dict.of Liturgy, 206). It is a law in the Church that all from 14 years to the beginning of 60 years ought to fast on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Fridays of lent (Can. 1251).
The sick is exempted from fasting. This means that all adults who are eligible to fast should make it a point of duty to include fasting in their weekly regimen. Fasting not only helps us to win heavenly grace, it also helps us win physical healing on earth. Moderate fasting on food and drinks has a lot of implications on the growth and rejuvenation of human bodies According to the World Health Organization (www.emro.who.int).
When one who drinks alcohol starts to abstain from drinking alcohol, most of the symptoms of alcohol-related sicknesses hopefully will disappear and healing may take place. The benefits of intermittent fasting to human health especially to body metabolism abound and the evidences are just a click away in the internet.
Gluttony, alcoholism, hedonism, and other evil addictions lead to sickness and death but fasting could cure them all. Remember that fasting should be moderate and controlled. We fast and deny ourselves our resources in order to share it with others especially the poor and the needy. This brings us to the third spiritual pillar of lent after fasting, – almsgiving.
Almsgiving is another spiritual exercise that helps us grow deeply in spirituality and be healed. It leads us to share our food and good materials with others in order to enhance the life of others. It helps us to practice detachment from materialism and to tame the excessive desire of the flesh. We share our resources with others in gratitude to God and as a sign that we received them from God. Almsgiving therefore is a great expression of the biblical truth that naked we came from our mothers’ womb and naked we shall return (Job 1:21).
This is Lenten Season! Recognize this opportunity and use it in order to be healed.
Rev. Fr. Cosmas Uzochukwu Okafor is Parish Priest of St. Francis of Assisi Orofia-Abagana
