Understanding our Faith

Lent is about Easter

Easter came first.  Christians celebrated Easter long before they celebrated Lent.  Easter celebrates all what Christianity is about – the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The first Christians were stunned by their discovery of Jesus alive after his death!  It took some time for it to dawn on them.  But once they took to heart that Jesus was alive beyond his death, it became the driving force of all that they did and said. 

As time went along the early Christians found a lot of people wanting to become Christians, so they had to work out how to bring such people into the community of faith.  Gradually this resulted in what they called the catechumenate as the way to bring new people into the life of the Church.  The basic plan was to baptise these new people at Easter and to create a period of preparation for them leading up to Easter.  Sometimes they went through several years of preparation ending in the Easter celebration of the year when they completed their preparation.

As time went along, those who were already Christians began to join the catechumens in the last period of their preparation for their baptism.  They did this as a way of renewing their own faith.  And so it was that Lent began for the whole of the Christian community. 

In line with this, at the Easter Vigil the whole Christian community renews the vows of their baptism and are sprinkled with the newly blessed Easter water, in which those to be baptised are baptised.  

Many parishioners will have been at Masses last Advent or during Lent when our catechumens have been part of several rites which lead up to their baptism or their entry into full communion with the Church, which will happen at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night.

A practical note.  The process of becoming Catholic is often referred to as the RCIA, that means the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.  You may have noticed that there are two words used to describe adults becoming Christian or Catholic: there is the word ‘catechumen’ which is used for those who are to be baptised and the word ‘candidate’ is used for those who have already been baptised but seek full communion with the Catholic Church.  The candidates will receive Confirmation and Eucharist but not baptism; whereas the catechumens will receive Baptism as well.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin