Hey Deacon!

If you took my simple Lenten quiz last week (and even if you did not), you know that the season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday during Holy Week, right before Good Friday. Doing the math, there are six Sundays in Lent with a series of six Gospel readings. And during this six-week period of Lent, the Old and New Testaments and Gospel readings are chosen according to the following principles. 

When it comes to the Old Testament, we're no longer going to be using a principle of harmony, where the Old Testament reading is chosen in relationship to the Gospel, in a sense of like typology or to point forward to it. That's not the rationale for Lent. During Lent, the Church picks Old Testament passages according to major events in salvation history. If you read through the Old Testament readings, from one week to the next, they will begin in either the book of Genesis or Exodus and take us through major events in salvation history. Such as the fall of Adam and Eve, the account of Abraham journeying to the promised land, Abraham's vision, etc. The Church has historically chosen such readings because Lent remains a period where catechumens, people preparing to receive the sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, receive instruction in the basics of the faith. The Church desires to present these foundational stories of salvation history from the Old Testament, so that when the good news of the Gospel is proclaimed, they (and we) will understand it. 

The second readings during Lent are typically ones of repentance that bridge the gap between the events of the Old Testament and the good news of redemption. The Church selects a New Testament epistle, again in line with the particular theme for that Sunday. Both the Old Testament and the New lead us toward the New Covenant that will be brought to its climax with Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection on Easter Sunday. 

The Lenten gospels are selected with a purpose of personal conversion. They do not follow the continual storyline from one Sunday to the next as they do in ordinary time. Instead, the Church chooses key passages from the life of Jesus that are deemed helpful for people who are discerning becoming Catholic along with enlightening those already Catholic. The first Sunday in Lent is the story of Jesus' temptations in the desert. The second Sunday is always the account of Jesus' Transfiguration, a glimpse of heavenly communion before He starts heading toward the cross. The remaining Sundays in Lent consist of Gospel passages that emphasize repentance from sin and the need to conversion -- a time for turning away from sin and preparing our hearts for Christ. And on the sixth Sunday, we place ourselves in the heart wrenching story of Jesus’ passion and death – only to hear it again with John’s Gospel version on Good Friday. Our solace is knowing that the story doesn’t end there. May the richness of God’s sacred Word inspire us in our Lenten journey. 

May it give hope to those preparing to enter the Church at Easter and draw all of us closer to Christ.


Author Bio:
 Deacon Dan Vaughn