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The Franciscan Vision of Lent
Bro. Jim Sabak, OFM, is known for collecting creche Christmas scenes. He has more than 100 of them, a hobby that relates to his Franciscan vocation, as the creche as an Advent symbol is often attributed to Francis of Assisi.
But don’t shortchange Lent, says Bro. Jim, the director of the master’s in Theological Studies Program at the Franciscan School of Theology in San Diego and chair of the American Franciscan Liturgical Commission. Lent can be a time of celebration as well as penance, emphasizes the friar.
That’s true even if the 40 days marking the Church’s preparation for Easter holds a far different reputation.
“For most people Lent is the time of the great penitence! Deny yourself, focus on sinfulness, hope that God forgives,” notes Bro. Jim.
That model of Lent can be seen in the life of Francis. Not only did he mark the traditional 40 days before Easter, Francis would also observe various Lenten times of the year, devoting himself to long periods of prayer, solitude and abstinence in summer and the early fall. He focused on seeking forgiveness.
But Lent was more than 40 days of penance and repentance in the Franciscan tradition. Bro. Jim points to Francis’ Canticle of Creation, which celebrates the environment, as a sign of the joy the man from Assisi felt. Not everything was dour for the saint who awakened environmental consciousness and celebrated how wonderful God’s work is in the natural world.
“If we truly want to follow Francis into Lent, we need to embrace something more about St. Francis and let this lead us through the Lenten Season. We need to remember that while Francis engaged in a variety of penitential practices and had his suspicions about the human body and our needs and desires these were all the product of his time,” says Bro. Jim.
“What is extraordinary about Francis was that consciously or subconsciously Francis sought to overcome the suspicions the Church was beginning to formulate about creation, our humanity, and our ability to connect with God on a personal level,” he says.
Through all his time devoted to the austere virtues of Lent, Francis continued to point beyond.
“Francis yearned to move beyond many of the contrived truths about humanity’s relationship with God and Christ based all too often on our own human imperfections and finite sense of who we are. Francis may have engaged in penitential practices, but he really did not deny the goodness of creation and of our humanity at the center of creation,” says Bro. Jim.
The friar notes that a Franciscan vision maintains that we are to do more than focus on repentance.
“We are capable of beauty and wonder and joy and these need to be unlocked from the fears and anxieties that all too often hold us bound in an unjust and unfair way. Even though he was constrained by the world and culture he lived in, Francis fought to remember who are and to whom we belong as creations of an extravagantly loving God,” he says.
Bro. Jim suggests this Lent we look beyond our failures and weaknesses.
“Lent is about memory and hope, and finding ourselves planted in the midst of these realities, which enables us to give witness that the destiny of humanity is not one of dread and fear, but of promise and fulfillment. And this is really what Lent has always oriented us toward — our God wishes us to remember year after year what it means to believe in a world of doubt and confusion, and really why we should believe in the first place.”
A Franciscan vision, he said, cautions against despair.
“Following Francis’ many struggles and disappointments we see that he never despaired to the point of giving up on God, on faith, and on himself. Lent each year asks us to remember to do the same. As we recall once again this Lent the great events that won for us so great a salvation, we are called and challenged to see and experience the true way to live as a believer in the world as Francis did, with a determination to do what God shows us what we must do as God showed Francis.”