By Jill Lin
Eggs. Check.
Flour. Check.
Oil. Check.
Sugar. Check.
This is my pantry checklist list in the days before Lent. Because, as every English schoolchild could tell you, the day before Lent is Pancake Day, the nickname for Shrove Tuesday. This is the one day of the year when our usual dinner menus, carefully planned and executed by my husband, fall by the wayside. I invade the kitchen, grab a frying pan and make copious numbers of pancakes. I flip them. We race with them. We eat them with meat and cheese, with chocolate and jam, with lemon and sugar. We gorge ourselves. Because the next day is Ash Wednesday and Lent begins.
I love Pancake Day.
And I love Lent.
Loving pancakes with myriad toppings and looking forward to a night of feasting is perhaps not that surprising.
But over the years, I’ve come to love Lent, too. Yes, I love Lent.
Why? Why love Lent? Isn’t it just the miserable, dour cousin of Advent? Isn’t it about works-righteousness, while we are all about grace? Surely we don’t have to earn our way to Easter.
Isn’t Easter all about the gift of grace? Why on earth love a season of fasting?
Ash Wednesday begins with a reminder of our mortality: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return”. These are the words spoken by the priest or minister as they make a cross out of ashes on our foreheads. Not exactly a feel-good sentiment.
And then, we fast, we deny ourselves something, or we attempt a spiritual discipline such as prayer or silence. Finally, we culminate with the remembrance of Good Friday and the Crucifixion. No, it’s not the more feel-good, festive preparation that Advent usually offers as we prepare for Christmas. But Lent is also a beautiful season of preparation.
It is a solemn, quiet, reflective preparation, not earning our way, but readying our hearts for the great feast of Easter.
So I have grown to love the quiet, solemn season of Lent. Every year, Lent teaches me something new. Every year, I discover new aspects to the blessings that this season gives and new reasons to savor this time of the year.
Let us pause together to consider some of these blessings of Lent.