From the Sounds of St. Francis, 23 Feb.
The Christian life is always a struggle across time. To quicken the heart, to still the spirit, to
tame the passions—these are the work of a lifetime, assisted by the grace the
Holy Spirit supplies. But the Scriptures
consistently testify that the period of forty days opens us to God in a special
way.
Especially when focused by prayer and fasting and carried out
in a withdrawal from the world’s haste and distraction, a period of forty days
gives space for deepened communion with God.
Moses fasted for forty days before God revealed the commandments to him
at Mount Sinai. Elijah fasted for forty days before receiving a vocation that
would define the closing days of his ministry.
Jonah warned the Ninevites that they had only forty days to repent of
their sins and to seek God’s forgiveness.
And of course, as we recall each year on the first Sunday of Lent, Jesus
was sent forth by the Spirit into the wilderness to face the Devil’s
temptations, fasting for forty days and discovering His saving mission.
When the leaders of the early church were aiming to fix a
period of public penance before notorious sinners could be readmitted to
communion at Easter, forty days was the natural choice. And when, a few centuries later, penance
became privatized, it was only natural that all the faithful should be urged to
a similar forty-day period to repent of their own sins in fasting and prayer,
the period we still keep as the season of Lent.
