Maybe you’re unsure about your Lenten spiritual practice this year. You have moved beyond the “giving up chocolate” sacrifice, though I still think there’s an important place for these denials. You want to feel a unique sense of penance and longing that feels appropriate for the season. Maybe you have decided you are going to read the Bible more, but Lent is too short for the full “Bible in a Year” plan that everyone started in January. Let me suggest you choose one section of the Bible and a theme on which to focus.
Every year I try to take a new look at a section of the Bible during Lent. My first year I chose the Gospels and Acts, next year was the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), the next year I focused on the Letters of St. Paul, another year the Psalms, another year, Job. These are all manageable lengths for the approximately 40 days of Lent—you can take Sundays off if you want, and it gives you an added focus as each book has certain themes to help shape your Lent.
This year, I plan to focus on two works, attributed to the same prophet, that provide the proper penitential spirit and hopeful foresight for the season. Both of the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, with their fifty-two and five chapters respectively, set up a reasonable two-chapters-per-day schedule if you just include weekdays of Lent with Saturdays as your catch-up day if needed.
In Jeremiah, we get exhortations to refrain from sin, to purify oneself for right worship, and the consequences of failing to heed both of these calls. In Lamentations, we see the result when Israel fails to heed them and how the prophet enters into and responds to this pain. These are all great themes for the season of Lent.
Lent is traditionally a season where we remember our death, as the ashes on Ash Wednesday make visible to us, which is the consequence of sin. The ashes are also a symbol of mourning, both for the sin of our first parents and for our continued falling into sin. We lament our current state while also looking forward to our upcoming Messiah, much like Jeremiah prophesied the “New Covenant” God would institute in Jeremiah 31:31.
Another common tradition during the season of Lent matches with this prophet as well. Many parishes hold parish missions during Lent, where a speaker with a prophetic gift will exhort parishioners to return to a life of faith or dive deeper into their relationship with Jesus. These missions will also involve more widespread offerings of the Sacrament of Confession, where we experience both the penance Jeremiah called for as well as the mercy Jesus offers us.
This is all to prepare us for the true worship to which God’s people were continually called. All of the prophets made this their message in unique ways. Many of these prophets had to speak against the idolatry of God’s people. Our idols and our worship may look a little different, but the prophets’ call remains the same.
Let’s use this Lent, and the powerful, emotional writings in Jeremiah and Lamentations to help guide our spiritual growth during this season.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
