TOMORROW, the Catholic areas of the Philippines, will commemorate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when palm branches were placed in his path, before his arrest on Maundy Thursday and his crucifixion on Good Friday.
This beginning of Holy Week, the final seven days of Lent or the start of “Passion Week” which is the final days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, is ushered in by the Christian tradition of waving palm branches, adopted into Christian iconography to represent the victory of martyrs, or the victory of the spirit over the flesh.
It is what theologians and religion scholars describe as the “beginning of the end” of Jesus work on earth—the travel over the Mount of Olives, with two disciples sent ahead to the village of Bethphage to find an animal to ride.
From as far north as Batanes to the villages of Mindanao, the areas baptized into the Cross, Lent has become a major portion of the people’s tradition and culture.
From Ash Wednesday—Feb. 14 in 2018—to Easter, many Christians, the Catholics included, allow the priest to mark their foreheads with ash in the shape of a cross, fasting or abstaining from certain foods or physical pleasures for 40 days.
Then there is the flagellation ritual which, in some parts, has become a tourist come-on.
Some scholars suggest they do this to imitate Jesus Christ’s 40-day fast in the wilderness (Matt: 4:1-2).
Many give up anything in preparation for Easter.
There are some who ask, and with good reason, what Lent is and why is it widely practiced by those who profess Christianity.
Some even ask: Is it because the Bible commands it?
Or did Christ or any of His apostles observe Lent?
Unlike New Year’s, Epiphany, Christmas, Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day and other pagan holidays celebrated by the secular, non-religious world, the Lenten season is observed by zealous religious believers.
Some Church observers say people who observe Lent may be religious, dedicated and sincere—“but they are sincerely wrong.”
Some propose an examination of Lent, its practices and customs, its historic and religious origins, and its true meaning from the Bible’s perspective, not from the “traditions of men” (Mark 7:7-9).
Where then did Lent originate? How did it come to be so widely observed by mainstream Christianity?
Some Bible scholars say Lent was never observed by Christ or His apostles.
He commanded them to “Go you therefore, and teach all nations…teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I havecommanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20).
These scholars say Jesus never commanded them to observe Lent or Easter.
He did, however, command them to keep Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.
In fact, during His last Passover on earth, Christ gave detailed instructions on how to observe the Passover service. He also instituted new Passover symbols (John 13:1-17).
Notice what Alexander Hislop wrote in his book The Two Babylons: “The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third and fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter…
“That festival [Passover] was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ‘It ought to be known,’ said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive [New Testament] Church with the Church of his day, ‘that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.’”
Lent was not observed by the first century Church.
It was first addressed by the church at Rome during the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, when Emperor Constantine officially recognized that church as the Roman Empire’s state religion.
Any other brand of Christianity that held to doctrines contrary to the Roman church was considered an enemy of the state.
In A.D. 360, the Council of Laodicea officially commanded Lent to be observed.
Originally, people did not observe Lent for more than a week. Some kept it for one or two days.
Others kept it for 40 consecutive hours, falsely believing that only 40 hours had elapsed between Christ’s death and resurrection.
Eventually, it became a 40-day period of fasting or abstaining from certain foods.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says: “The emphasis was not so much on the fasting as on the spiritual renewal that the preparation for Easter demanded. It was simply a period marked by fasting, but not necessarily one in which the faithful fasted every day.
“However, as time went on, more and more emphasis was laid upon fasting…During the early centuries (from the fifth century on especially) the observance of the fast was very strict.
“Only one meal a day, toward evening was allowed: flesh meat and fish, and in most places even eggs and dairy products, were absolutely forbidden. Meat as not even allowed on Sundays.”
From the ninth century onward, Lent’s strict rules were relaxed.
Greater emphasis was given to performing “penitential works” than to fasting and abstinence.
According to the apostolic constitution Poenitemini of Pope Paul IV (Feb. 17, 1966), “abstinence is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of the year that do not fall on holy days of obligation, and fasting as well as abstinence is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday” (Catholic Encyclopedia).
Today, Lent is used for “fasting from sin and from vice…forsaking sin and sinful ways.”
It is a season “for penance, which means sorrow for sin and conversion to God.”
This tradition teaches that fasting and employing self-discipline during Lent will give a worshipper the “control over himself that he needs to purify his heart and renew his life.”
However, some scholars say the Bible clearly shows that self-control—temperance—comes from having God’s Holy Spirit working in the life of a converted mind (Gal. 5:16, 17, 22).
Fasting, of and by itself, cannot produce godly self-control.
Paul warned against using self-denial as a tool to rely on one’s own will. He called it “will worship.”
“Wherefore if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances, (touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
“Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body: not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh” (Col. 2:20-23).
God’s people humble themselves through fasting to draw closer to Him—to learn to think and act like Him—to live His way of life in all things.
Some scholars refer to what the Prophet Jeremiah wrote: “Thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
“But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the Lord” (Jer. 9:23-24).
The Roman church replaced Passover with Easter, moving the pagan Feast of Tammuz to early spring, “Christianizing” it. Lent moved with it.
According to the book The Two Babylons: “This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent.”
Before giving up personal sins and vices during Lent, the pagans held a wild, “anything goes” celebration to make sure they got in their share of debaucheries and perversities—what the world celebrates as Mardi Gras today.
HBC, a group leader of the Elderly Ministry of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, is a member of the Workers of Mercy and the Propagation of the Faith.