Wednesday, February 06, 2008 Arinday: Lent By G.H. Arinday Sunfare
PERHAPS, NO season or period in the religious practices in Christendom can transcend the significance of the Lent, a 40-day period preceding Easter Sunday.
Lent is not exclusive of penance or prayers.
As early as 4th century, Lent is the penitential season six weeks before Palm Sunday. Among the early Greco-Roman mystery religions, the Lent was observed as a time to seek enlightenment and often preceded by prophecy. Among the Jews, it is known as Omer, a season of semi-mourning and sadness and no "public festivities" are allowed.
If one would take the religious philosophy by summing up the various strains, Lent is a period where one is given the opportunity for self-rediscovery, a time for self-appraisal, also a time for reexamination of one's prejudices and perceptions.
Between the Law of Fate and the Law of Faith, which by ancient Eastern beliefs and during the supreme reign of pantheism before the Christian Era (BCE), the fatalistic belief of predestination was predominant.
If indeed, the Lent is a season for seeking enlightenment, it is highly indispensable for our political leaders and the people themselves to be honest with their intellectual and emotional aptitude to cast away the curses which have had possessed them arising from chronic prejudices.
The worst corruption is the corruption of unassailable verities in life like honesty of purpose and the reasons behind such quest. Corruption is not about money alone but the distortion of the basic truth that could not stand simple scrutiny under the aegis of the truth-table analysis of the sociology of law and be higher than the rock of Faith, which the latter does not make distinctions among believers of the Omniscient One.
In this land where various religious or cult organizations have competed for the numbers of their flock, there is always the presence of ideological prejudices, irreconcilable with the standards of Truth. It is not either the legal or the political truth but the moral truth, the premise of all varied beliefs.
The Lent is truly a period for sadness because it is one season when a person is definitely challenged what changes could he does not only for himself but for his fellows to make society an orderly one.
If the proliferation of religious dogmas has brought differences in the interpretations of any holy scriptures, it is but the varied fingers of God, according to the prominent Lebanese poet-philosopher Khalil Gibran. However, somewhere in the summit of their thinking, it is the Law of Faith that counts so much. The strains of Existentialism may be found in the lyrics and melodies.
Among the Christian believers, influenced by the French culture, Ash Wednesday is preceded by Shrove Tuesday, the last day of all festivities like the Mardi Gras and this is observed religiously in Latin America. But there is one curious activity among the local Christians, notably in Bantayan Islands, where the Lent season is a real fiesta where roasted pigs, a forbidden food on the days of penance, such fare in their annual celebrations has puzzled some foreigners of its "unique" sense of interpreting the Lent.
Probably, such practice may have developed from some kind of superstition, a component of the "volkgeist" or folk-soul and qualifies under the monistic aspect of pantheism, a term coined by John Toland during the 18th century, which concerns about the different practices of religious faith.
Mysticism cannot be avoided in religious practice which religious philosophers call it the poetry of nature in any kind of beliefs recognizing one Supreme Unity or God in unity with the world.
Under such theory, "thinking and extension" are possible. Thus, in interpreting or constructing the significance of some unique religious practices, their foundations may have religious beginnings, while others have philosophic or even poetic point of view. The last source-poetic point of view-ushers us into the ways of thinking, reappraisal and self-reconstruction to seek unity with the Laws of Faith.
Nevertheless, the most universally accepted practice is the period of mourning and sadness in recognition of Jesus Christ's supreme sacrifice to redeem humankind from the pit of sin.
One would probe into the bowels of his thoughts and feelings the story of two thieves, Dimas and Isthas, when the former saw enlightenment and change of heart, while the latter mocked the son of God.
Only the proud and arrogant would maintain his chronic illness of prejudices like partisan or ideological feelings, shut off from the beacon of Enlightenment.
Such "chained melody" of the closed mind does not augur well for one's own freedom and the person remains a prisoned and unthinking individual throughout his lifetime.
