Lenten Customs Past and Present

A Reflection assembled by Fred Schaeffer, OFS

 Source: From Public Domain sources. This is more history than Church law. For Catholic Lenten Rules, please contact the nearest Parish.

Mardi Gras

One of the more interesting pre-Lenten customs in the United States, is the New Orleans Mardi Gras. The celebration of Mardi Gras was brought to Louisiana by early French settlers. The first record of the holiday being celebrated in Louisiana was at the mouth of the Mississippi River in what is now lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on March 3, 1699. Iberville, Bienville, and their men celebrated it as part of an observance of Catholic practice.

The starting date of festivities in New Orleans is unknown. An account from 1743 notes that the custom of Carnival balls was already established. Processions and wearing of masks in the streets on Mardi Gras took place, were sometimes prohibited by law, and were quickly renewed whenever such restrictions were lifted or enforcement waned. In 1833 Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville, a rich plantation owner of French descent, raised money to fund an official Mardi Gras celebration.

On Mardi Gras of 1857, the Mystick Krewe of Comus held its first parade. Comus is the oldest continuously active Mardi Gras organization. It started a number of continuing traditions (for example, the use of floats in parades). It is considered the first Carnival krewe in the modern sense. In 1875 Louisiana declared Mardi Gras a legal state holiday.

War, economic, political, and weather conditions sometimes led to cancellation of some or all major parades, especially during the American Civil War, World War I and World War II, but the city has always celebrated Carnival.

The year 1972 was the last year in which large parades went through the narrow streets of the city's old French Quarter neighborhood; larger floats and crowds and safety concerns led the city government to prohibit big parades in the Quarter. Major parades now take place outside the Quarter, especially on the wider Canal Street.

A major part of this celebration is the baking of a King's Cake, in which is placed a small doll of the Infant Jesus. The person whose piece of cake has the doll must provide the cake for next year's party.

Other pre-Lenten festivals

Fasching

Fasching is celebrated mainly in the Catholic parts of Germany. Different areas give it different names, for example, Karneval, Fastnacht, Fasnet, or Fosnat. Fasching is only the name used in and around Munich. Some of the biggest celebrations in Germany take place in Köln (Cologne).  This city certainly has the longest tradition with street  parties dating back to the 14th century. Many Bavarians try to claim that the biggest celebrations are now in Munich, but this is debatable. As the world becomes more secularized, these festivals have less to do with religion than a couple of hundred years ago.

Forty Hours Devotion

Since pre-Lenten celebrations became prone to excess and scandal, Pope Benedict XIV instituted in 1748 the Forty Hours of Carnival, especially  in those areas prone to such reveling. During this devotion the Blessed Sacrament is exposed during the day and Benediction held in the evening.

The Great Fast

Of all the observances of Lent, the chief among these is the Great Fast. So intertwined are the two, in fact, that the Fathers of the Church sometimes used the terms interchangeably. This solemn obligation is believed to be of Apostolic origin and takes its precedent, as we mentioned above, from the examples of Moses, Elias, and Jesus. The Great Fast used to consist of both abstinence and fasting. Christians were expected to abstain not only from flesh meat, but from all things that come from flesh, e.g. milk, cheese, eggs, and butter. Eastern rite Christians still observe this practice, while the Western church gradually kept only abstinence from meat (reference to all lacticinia, or "milk foods," was dropped in the 1919 Roman Code of Canon Law). Both East and West, however, agree on the importance of fasting.  Originally this meant taking only one meal a day, though the practice was modified over the centuries. The pre-conciliar practice in the U.S. was for all able-bodied Catholics ages 21 to 60 to have one full meal a day which could include meat, and two meatless meals which together could not equal one full meal. Snacking between meals was prohibited, though drinking was not. Ash Wednesday, Fridays and the Ember Days were days of total abstinence from meat, while Sundays were completely exempted from all fasting and abstaining.

The idea behind the Great Fast -- as well as other periods of fasting -- is that by weakening the body it is made more obedient to the soul, thereby liberating the soul to contemplate higher things. St. Augustine gives perhaps the best example: if you have a particularly high-spirited horse, you train it at the times when it is too weak to revolt. It is our opinion that this venerable practice should still be taken seriously. Even though current ecclesiastical law has reduced the fast from forty days to two and eliminated  the thirty-three days of partial abstinence, this does not mean that observing  the Great Fast is not salubrious or praiseworthy. This said, however, the Great Fast should not be adhered to legalistically. In the words of St. John  Chrysostom: "If your body is not strong enough to continue fasting all day, no wise man will reprove you; for we serve a gentle and merciful Lord who expects nothing of us beyond our strength."

Other Forms of Asceticism

Since Lent recapitulates time spent in the desert, other forms of asceticism  have accrued to its observance. Unessential travel and diversion are  discouraged. In former times, certain forms of entertainment, such as  live theatre and secular music, were banned, as was the holding of court. Weddings were also forbidden in the early Church; even after this  changed, the Solemn Nuptial Blessing could not be given during a Lenten wedding.  Finally, married couples were once admonished to abstain from conjugal  relations during this time (as they were admonished to do during all solemn  fasts and feasts). Again, the principle is the same: withdrawal from the  preoccupations of the flesh in order to focus on the spirit.

Mourning & Veiling

Akin to the asceticism of Lent is its mournful tone. The Church is traditionally draped in purple or black (in olden times), its organ silenced, and its altar bereft of any flowers. At home medieval Catholics would avoid frivolity or hilarity, and would wear black during either Holy Week or Good Friday.

There is a special mourning custom that also begins on Passion Sunday and ends when the Gloria is sung during the Easter Vigil Mass: covering  all sacred images (crucifixes, statues, etc.) with purple cloth in both  church and home. This might seem counterintuitive, since one would expect to  gaze at a crucifix more during the season when the Passion is being considered.  Yet the Roman rite teaches by absence as well as by presence. In an odd way,  being denied access to the sacred images alerts you to their presence all the  more, in the same way that not having the sacrifice of the Mass on the one day  you would expect it the most, i.e., Good Friday, makes one all the more aware of  the Sacrifice that took place on that day. Covering sacred images also adds  immensely to the sense of sorrow and compunction that should naturally accompany  this somber period. Lately, the Corpus is not always being covered, some only partially so.

Confession  and Holy Communion

One of the Precepts of the Church is to receive the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion at least once a year, during Lent or Paschal tide. As mentioned above, Catholics once dedicated the three days prior to Lent as a special time to go to confession. Shrovetide arose from the desire to prepare for the holy asceticism of the Great Fast. Once Lent begins, however, confession should still be sought out: since Lent is a time for frequent and frank examinations of conscience, confession is a sacrament that should be liberally taken advantage of during this time.

Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross originated in pilgrimages to Jerusalem. A desire to reproduce the holy places in other lands seems to have manifested itself at quite an early date. At the monastery of San Stefano at Bologna a group of connected chapels were constructed as early as the fifth century, by St. Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, which was intended to represent the more important shrines of Jerusalem, and in consequence, this monastery became familiarly known as "Hierusalem.” These may perhaps be regarded as the germ from which the Stations afterwards developed, though it is tolerably certain that nothing that we have before about the fifteenth century can strictly be called a Way of the Cross in the modern sense. Although several travelers who visited the Holy Land during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, mention a "Via Sacra,” i.e., a settled route along which pilgrims were conducted, there is nothing in their accounts to identify this with the Way of the Cross, as we understand it.[citation needed] The devotion of the Via Dolorosa, for which there have been a number of variant routes in Jerusalem, was probably developed by the Franciscans after they were granted administration of the Christian holy places in Jerusalem in 1342.

The earliest use of the word “stations,” as applied to the accustomed halting-places in the Via Sacra at Jerusalem, occurs in the narrative of an English pilgrim, William Wey, who visited the Holy Land in the mid-1400s, and described pilgrims following the footsteps of Christ to the cross.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Franciscans began to build a series of outdoor shrines in Europe to duplicate their counterparts in the Holy Land. The number of stations varied between eleven and thirty. In 1686, in answer to their petition, Pope Innocent XI granted to the Franciscans the right to erect stations within their churches. In 1731, Pope Clement XII extended the right of all churches to have the stations, provided that a Franciscan father erected them, with the consent of the local bishop. At the same time the number was fixed at fourteen. In 1857, the bishops of England were allowed to erect the stations by themselves, without the intervention of a Franciscan priest, and in 1862 this right was extended to bishops throughout the church.

Mid-Lent Customs

Mid-Lent, the week from the Wednesday before to the Wednesday after Laetare Sunday, is a note of joy within the context of sorrow. The  perfect symbol of this complex emotion is the rose vestments worn on Laetare Sunday instead of penitential purple or exultent white. Rose  stands somewhere in between, as a sort of joyous variation of purple. The last  day of Mid-Lent is when catechumens would learn the Apostles' Creed for the  first time; the days leading up to that great revelation were thus for them a  cause for gladness. This spirit eventually permeated to the rest of the  community as "a measure of consoling relaxation... so that the faithful might  not break down under the severe strains of the Lenten fast but may continue to  bear the restrictions with a refreshed and easier heart" (Pope Innocent III (d.  1216)).

Mid-Lent customs predominantly involve pre-Christian celebrations concerning the "burial" of winter, where flower decorations and the like betoken the  joyous end of the cold and dark. There are also customs involving either matchmaking or announcing the engagements of young couples. In either  case, a joyous meal is celebrated during this time.

In England Laetare Sunday came to be known as "Mothering"  Sunday because it was the day that apprentices and students were released  from their duties to visit their mother church, i.e., the church in which they  had been baptized and brought up. This custom tied into the theme of Mother Jerusalem.

Passiontide Customs

The main custom for Passiontide, as mentioned above, is the veiling of all  sacred images in home and church with purple cloth. This custom originated in  ancient times, when the images in the papal chapel of the Vatican were covered  after the words of the Passion Sunday Gospel, "Jesus hid himself and went out of  the temple" (Jn 8.59), were pronounced.

Holy Week Customs

Spring Cleaning. Just as the Hebrews cleaned and swept the whole house in  preparation for the Pasch (Passover), so too is there an ancient custom in  Christianity that the first three weekdays of Holy Week be a time for the year's  most thorough cleaning. Everything is to be scrubbed and polished, and all work  is to be completed by Wednesday evening (in time for Tenebrae).

Attending Tenebrae. Tenebrae consists  of the divine office of Matins and Lauds for Maundy Thursday. It is generally  held on the night of "Spy Wednesday" of Holy Week, so-called because it is  believed to be the night on which Judas Iscariot betrayed our Lord. The service  thus explores the nature of Judas' betrayal, the mental anguish of our suffering  Lord, and the desecration of what was once holy and beautiful. Its ceremonies  include the use of a "hearse," a triangular candelabrum that holds  fifteen candles which are successively existinguished during the liturgy until  the entire church is enveloped in darkness. Only one candle remains lit at the  end, which is hidden by the Epistle side of the altar before the Miserere is chanted. The service concludes with a banging noise, followed by silence.  The extinction of the fourteen candles calls to mind the fourteen holy men  mentioned in the Bible who, from the foundation of the world to the very  threshold of Christ's coming, were slain by their own wicked brethren. The  hiding of the fifteenth candle, on the other hand, signifies the murder and  resurrection of Christ Himself, while the banging noise commemorates the  confusion of nature when its Creator died (Mt. 27.51). After the Second Vatican Council, certain religious Orders (Monks) still sang Tenebrae Liturgy, but this custom seems to have all but disappeared from Diocesan parishes. However, there seems to be a comeback to this practice here and there, particularly where Gregorian Chant is still being used.

Attending [Maundy] Holy Thursday Mass

There were originally three separate  Masses for Maundy Thursday. The first, no longer in use, is the Mass of  Remission, whereby the public penitents who had been doing special penance  during Lent were received back into the Church. The second is the Chrism  Mass, when the bishop blesses the holy oils to be used for the year. The  third is the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, in which the Church  celebrates the institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood. The special ceremonies for this exultant Mass (the Gloria returns and white vestments  are used) include the priest's washing the feet of twelve men, the removal of  the Eucharist to the Altar of Repose, and the stripping of the altars.

The Maundy Thursday Vigil. After the Blessed Sacrament is "laid to rest"  in a special tabernacle on the Altar of Repose, it is customary for the  church to stay open all night and for private devotion to take place. A  variation of this custom is to visit seven such shrines during the night in  imitation of the Sette Chiese of the Roman Stations. This custom was quite popular in American  cities like Boston until the late 1960s.

"Clean" Thursday Customs.

Because it was the day that penitents and  catechumens were cleansed of their sins (and allowed to bathe again), Maundy  Thursday is known in some parts of the world as "Clean" Thursday. The idea of  cleanliness also extended to the rest of the faithful. In a time when bathing  did not happen every day, Clean Thursday became the occasion for thoroughly  cleansing the body in preparation for Easter.

There is also a charming legend that after the bells are rung for the Gloria during the Mass of the Last Supper, "they fly to Rome" where -- depending on who is telling the story -- they either are blessed by the Pope and  sleep on the roof of St. Peter's Holy Saturday night, or are given Easter eggs  to return with them on Sunday morning.

Source: public domain.

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