This season has always been my favorite in the church calendar. The melancholy of Lent, the altar draped in purple, the solemn sense of waiting, the self-sacrifice and dietary restrictions … all of it appealed to me as a child. Perhaps it was my developed sense of drama and aesthetics that responded so strongly to the theatre of the church (especially during Lent). That’s what it seemed like to me, and that is, in essence, what it is. Not in the sense of being phony but in the sense of it being a ritual, acted out in public, a community ritual with props and costumes and music. A collective event, with elements you could count on every year. The colors, the stations of the cross, Good Friday and the silence of the church, the seriousness of it, counting down, to Easter when the priest gets rid of his purple robe, and dons a white one. All of it spoke to me on a primal level as a kid. I suppose it still does.<\/p>\n
The solemnity of Lent is lifted in the joy of Easter. The hope, the wait is over, the church no longer draped in purple, but now filled with brighter colors and with white, an abundance of white. Easter is impossible without Lent. You must go through the time of solemnity, suffering, self-sacrifice – in order to experience any rebirth. It makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This season has always been my favorite in the church calendar. The melancholy of Lent, the altar draped in purple, the solemn sense of waiting, the self-sacrifice and dietary restrictions … all of it appealed to me as a child. … Continue reading