March 2011

Dear Friends of St. Lazare Retreat House,

Thank you for your prayers, presence at and financial support for St. Lazare Retreat House.   May I share with you a few thoughts as we approach Lent.

The origin and purpose of Lent. Shortly after  the first Easter Sunday, followers of Jesus began celebrating Fridays as a day of fast in memory of the day of the Lord’s death, and Sundays as a day of Eucharistic celebration in memory of the Lord’s day of resurrection.  The spirit and practices of Lent are rooted in the Church’s first century.

Late in the second century, Pope Victor I ordered that Easter would be celebrated on a Sunday, and not on any other day of the week. While the Church in the West had grown accustomed to celebrating Easter on Sunday, the Church in the East had been celebrating Easter on whatever day fell the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. Early in the fourth century, the Church Fathers at the Council of Nicea (325) compromised. They agreed that all Christians would celebrate Easter on Sunday, and that the date would be determined by the lunar calendar used by the East rather than the solar calendar used in the West.  Since that time, the Church has celebrated Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the spring equinox.  Easter remains a movable feast, falling within a range of 35 days.

The Friday fast before the now established annual celebration of Easter Sunday became more demanding than the ordinary first century Friday fasts.  In anticipation of Easter, these Good Friday fasts varied in length of days from place to place: one day, two days, 36 days, or up to 40 days.  The 36 day fast extended for six weeks of six days with Sunday never being a fast day.  The 40 day fast extended for eight weeks of five days, not counting Saturdays and Sundays. At least by the early fourth century, the Church had adopted the six weeks of six days, and added another half-week by beginning the fast on what would become Ash Wednesday.   Today, the 40 days of Lent begin on Ash Wednesday and culminate with the Triduum, i.e., Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, prior to the Easter Vigil.  The number 40 has religious significance. Moses had spent 40 days and nights fasting and praying atop Mount Sinai before receiving the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34.28); the prophet Elijah had walked 40 days and nights to reach Mount Sinai (1 Kgs. 19.8); and Jesus had spent 40 days and nights fasting and praying in the desert before beginning his public ministry (Mt. 4.2). 

Lent’s 40 days of penance are balanced with 50 days of joy celebrated from Easter to Pentecost Sunday.   In the Church’s wisdom, she recognizes the rhythms of human life: sin and grace, suffering and joy, and ordinary days. The liturgical year consists of the four weeks of Advent, the more or less three weeks of the Christmas season, the 34 weeks of Ordinary Time, which sandwich the 40 days of Lent and the 50 days of the Easter season up to Pentecost Sunday. 

The origin and roots of Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is rooted in the Roman Empire’s pagan feast of Lupercalia, which honored the pastoral god Lupercus. This pagan feast occurred in mid-February to celebrate the onset of spring.  The festival had a circus-like atmosphere in which people donned masks and costumes, and distributed cakes, coins and trinkets. Church leaders reasoned it would be easier to adopt and transform this festival than to eliminate it.  The Christian adoption of this feast was placed three-days just before Lent. This period became known as Shrivetide. Shrive in ancient Anglo Saxon means to confess one’s sins. The Tuesday became known as Shrove Tuesday.  This feast became popular in much of Europe during the High Middle Ages.  The French named this three-day celebration Carnival.  Carne means meat/flesh; and vale means good-bye. Christians at this feast said goodbye to meat and the desires of the flesh, thus the word Carnival. The French named the last day of the festival Mardi Gras, which means Fat Tuesday. This day was celebrated with great revelry and with ridding the home of all its fats.  This festival took place just before Christians began their forty days of penance in preparation for the celebration of Easter.    Easter is the most important feast in the Church’s liturgical year. 

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Ideas for captains.   Captains, whom might you contact as likely retreatants at St. Lazare Retreat House?  Oftentimes, children of retreatants, siblings of retreatants, friends of retreatants, and members of existing parish organizations, e.g., Knights of Columbus, Ladies Sodality, Holy Name, Prayer Groups, Bible Studies, Serra Club, etc.  Also, new and/or recent members of the following programs, RCIA and Catholics Returning Home, are likely retreatants.

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St. Lazare Golf Outing: June 16, 2011; Grand Haven Golf Club

   8am, registration; 9am, shotgun start; 1:30pm, lunch and prizes

• $85 per golfer or $300 per foursome
• You are invited to make the Golf Outing a fun-and-fund-raiser for St. Lazare Retreat House. If you wish to participate, please contact any one of the following persons.

 

Coordinator & Rules Committee: Bud Lothschutz (dancer@chartermi.net)

Foursomes Committee:

Prizes Committee: 

Registration Committee: Tom Weber (weberpentwater@hotmail.com)

Sponsorship Committee: Deb Hekman (dhekman@crosswindsgroup.com)

•     & Bob Davis (bob_davis_msw@comcast.net)

Sincerely, in Jesus and St. Vincent de Paul,                                            

 Fr. Vincent J. O’Malley, CM