Pre-Lent

This year due to the calculations of the calendar, the celebration of Easter, the Resurrection of our Lord, is quite early, the last week of March.  And, as a consequence of this, the season of Lent which precedes it, and the season of Pre-Lent which precedes that is also quite early.  On the last Sunday of January, only slightly more than a month after Christmas, the season of Pre-Lent begins. 

On this upcoming first Sunday of the Pre-Lenten season, we will hear a Gospel reading from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark.  We have essentially been reading within this first chapter of Mark since the end of the Christmas and Epiphany season and we continue right from that into the Gospel readings for Pre-Lent.  In Mark’s Gospel, right after the preaching of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus, we hear the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in His call to “repent and believe in the good news,” and then His call of the first disciples.

Following this we encounter a number of healings of Jesus in this Gospel, including the one we have for this first Sunday of Pre-Lent.

The Gospel of Mark continues: ‘A leper approached Jesus with a request, kneeling down as he addressed Him: “If You will to do so, You can cure me.”  Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out His hand, touched him, and said: “I do will it.  Be cured.”  The leprosy left him then and there, and he was cured.  Jesus gave him a stern warning and sent him on his way.  “Go off and present yourself to the priest and offer for your cure what Moses prescribed.  That should be a proof for them.”  The man went off and began to proclaim the whole matter freely, making it no longer possible for Jesus to enter a town openly.  He stayed in desert places; yet people kept coming to Him from all sides.’ (Mark 1:40-45)

While not wanting to get into the issues that are raised here in regards to an understanding of exactly what the skin diseases we are speaking about in this passage are, there is certainly a reality and an attitude that must be considered.  A man comes to Jesus with a condition that he cannot cure himself.  It is entirely beyond his capacity to make himself pure and whole.  But in this condition, he turns to Jesus with extreme confidence.  “If You will to do so, You can cure me.” (Mark 1:40b)  And of course we see that Jesus does embrace this man and with His touch cures him. 

As we begin this season of Pre-Lent we are called to have much the same attitude about our own lives and our own condition.  During the Lenten season that is to come, we will focus on the passion and death of Jesus which won for us the forgiveness of our sins and healing of our lives, but then we will do this in a very communal and public way.  Together we will gather for devotions like Stations of the Cross.  Together we will celebrate penitential devotions.  Together we will abstain and fast, pray and give.  But the Pre-Lenten season allows us to enter into this reality with the right attitude. 

As people in the western culture, and maybe even more so as Americans, we are taught and encouraged to be self-reliant.  ‘Pull yourself up by your own boot straps’ is a common mantra that we say to ourselves when we enter into any challenging situation.  But when considering our human nature, our spiritual lives and our own reality as people we must rather take the attitude of this man with leprosy.  We must come to Jesus; we cannot bring holiness to ourselves.

This is really the individual work of the Pre-Lenten season.  I recommend to each and every one of you a work written in 2022 by Fr. Dr. Scott Lill for our individual preparations during the Pre-Lent season.  (For those interested, it is available from the Office of the Prime Bishop.  Send an email request to: [email protected] and you will be emailed the booklet which you can print out and use.)

Within the publication the two and a half weeks of Pre-Lent are broken up into a ‘Week of Recollection,’ a ‘Week of Self-examination’ and finally in the few days before Ash Wednesday, ‘The Days of Decision.’  Within this preparation then, we stand at the threshold of Lent, ready to enter fully into that season of repentance and change.

The booklet states: “The Church’s Pre-Lenten liturgical life leads the way, sets the tone and provides direction as to how we should also proceed in our personal preparations for Lent.  Drawing upon the beautiful spiritual traditions of both East and West, the booklet offers a simple daily preparation program that each of us may employ so that the liturgy may indeed take Pre-Lenten root deep within us, begin to bud during Holy Lent, and burst forth into new life at Easter.  Remember that our Easter joy is increased proportional to our spiritual struggles during Lent, and this, in turn, is best undergirded by the interior provisions made during Pre-Lent.”

So my brothers and sisters, as we enter into this Pre-Lenten season, come each day to your prayers and devotions with the attitude of the man in the Gospel.  Realize that you need Jesus in your life.  Realize that only through and in Him can we reach our full stature as children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ.  Come to Him, casting your life before His feet and proclaim with the leprous man, “Jesus, if You will to do so, You can cure me.”  Say these words knowing that Jesus can cure and heal you from your sin and selfishness.  Jesus can heal you from the challenges that you cannot overcome.  He will guide you through the difficulties that you are not strong enough to face on your own.

I encourage you all during Pre-Lent, say these words of trust and submission.  Say them often.  During this season of Pre-Lent make personal spiritual preparations to be ready to do the hard work of prayer, fasting and almsgiving within Lent.  Say these words so that you will not be fooling yourself into thinking that you can accomplish any of this apart from Jesus.

“Jesus, if You will do to so, You can cure me.”  These are not words which try to please, to plead or to convince.  We are not worthy of Christ’s mercy and there is no argument to make that will intellectually convince Him.  We seek Christ’s mercy, because He has told us that He loves us and because of that love to ask.  So we ask Him, loving as best we can, to show His mercy once again to cure us, heal us and make us whole.