Happy Quinquagesima

   This weekend in the calendar followed by the Traditional Latin Mass, the Church celebrates "Quinquagesima Sunday"... that is the Sunday "fifty days" before Easter.  The old calendar has an interesting season of time before Lent measured by "seventy", "sixty" and "fifty" days before Easter, which are not completely Lenten in nature, but are meant to be a reminder that the spiritual intensity of Lent is on its way.

   Now Lent itself is a period of preparation for Easter.  Why might the Church have a season to prepare for a season of preparation?  The trajectory of Lent is inseparable from Easter, that's right, but Lent itself is an important time, not to be wasted or endured... not to simply have the faithful 'put the knee down on the ball' until the clock runs out for Easter.  Lent is a blessed time that if we can enter it with a conscientious attentiveness, we can find great joy and spiritual growth.

   One does not plant a garden or field on unprepared, untilled land.  One does not run a marathon without months of training and preparation.  It is impossible to walk into a surgical suite as a doctor without years of medical training.  Preparation time is critically important for success, even if the goal is several steps beyond what can be seen in the moment.

   As Catholics, it is important to consider how we are going to use the gift of Lent before it is upon us.  Ash Wednesday is a great day for commitment to a new way of life and a new spirit, but how often do our resolutions turn out to be no more realistic or binding than the resolutions we make for New Year's day?  (Remember that New Year's diet and all that weight you were going to lose by now?)  The perennial wisdom of the Church has been to call out a reminder that we need to be ready, not just for the apex of our Church year on Easter, but even for that privileged time of preparation.

   And so, I put it to you, what is the Spirit asking you to look at during Lent?  What invitations are you receiving to become more holy during the next seven weeks?  How are you going to accomplish these changes?  Look deeply with the eyes of faith, knowing that there is something special... something critical to celebrating Easter with renewed joy which the Lord wishes to give you this Lent.  Accept with faith the invitation to follow him on the road to Calvary.

   The Gospel from the old missal for this weekend (Luke 18: 31-43) tells of Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem and warning his disciples that a tough time lies ahead.  Even as this happens, a blind man calls to the Lord in faith, is healed, and joyfully takes up the path of Jesus.  If you think about it, Jesus gives the blind man a gift that will haunt him... the sight of the persecution and crucifixion which his savior is about to endure.  Would it not have been better simply to have received the gift of sight in the joy of the light of the resurrection?  ...or to have been given the gift and then been dispensed from the pain of the cross?  Sure it would, but by opening the man's eyes to the Lord's suffering and inviting him to participate in that suffering with his new-found sight, Easter Sunday will have a much deeper meaning for the formerly-blind man, won't it?  The formerly-blind man will recognize his sufferings--his blindness, his participation in the 'happy fault' of Adam, even his own death--have reason and meaning in the resurrection of Easter Sunday.

   We are the blind--those who have been dulled and discouraged, sullied and savaged by the spiritual struggles of the year behind.  We call out for mercy to the Son of David and accept again the invitation to walk with him into the very reality of his saving death.  In doing so, we are renewed by the hope of his resurrection--this coming Easter and when he calls us forth from death to new life.

--Fr. Tom Donovan