The distinctive English word “Lent” is derived from the
Anglo-Saxon word for “spring”, which appropriately coincides with the great
forty-day fast, common to both East and West at least since the fourth
century. Notwithstanding the fact that autumn occurs at this time in the
Southern Hemisphere, the English word has the advantage over the Latin words
based on “quadraginta” or “forty” because it calls to mind the new life,
growth, hope and change that should characterize this time of prayer, penance
and conversion, this season of initiation into the grace life of the Church.
In these forty days, Mother Church vests herself simply in
violet. Her sacred halls are bare, and much of her gracious music is
muted. Flowers at her altars and shrines are set aside, and, at the end
of the season, the lamps will be extinguished, the bells will fall silent and
her altars will be stripped. But this is her true springtime, when her
children grow in grace, in ways often imperceptible, subtle and varied.
Lent thus reminds us that the great graces are given by God, not when our senses
perceive them or when our hearts are full of consolations, but in the silence
and the stillness of “the night”.
A certain austerity should thus characterize the setting of the
Lenten liturgy. Simpler candlesticks may well be placed on or around the
altar. Flowers are not used to adorn the altar from Ash Wednesday until
the Gloria at the Easter Vigil, except for Lætare Sunday, solemnities and feast
days (cf. GIRM, no. 305). It would be best to exclude them entirely from
the church, even at popular shrines, during the whole penitential season.
The organ and other instruments are to be used only to sustain singing.
The Te Deum and the Gloria are sung or said on solemnities or feasts, but not
on the Sundays of Lent. “Alleluia” is never sung or said on any day until
the Easter Vigil, and hymns that include this praise should be excluded.
From Msgr. Peter J. Elliott, Ceremonies of the
Liturgical Year according to the Modern Roman Rite (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2002), pp. 53-54.
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