Repentance in the context of historical injustices
Part 1
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews) -- March
6 of the year 2019 is Ash Wednesday.
As most Catholics know, this day marks the beginning of the Lenten Period, the liturgical year of the Christian Churches lasting 40 days. Lent is the season marked for repentance, fasting, reflection, and ultimately celebration with a commemoration of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Count 46 days from March 6 and the 46th day would be Easter Sunday. Lent is the season when the believers’ focus is on Christ’s life, ministry, sacrifice and triumph from death.
Islam - a faith tradition in the Abrahamic mold like Judaism and Christianity - also sets aside days of fasting and sacrifice, which is their Ramadhan to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad according to Islamic belief. But one can observe that Muslims seem to be more devout in honoring the Ramadhan days than Christians would for Lent. There was a time in the pre-Vatican II days when the Catholic Church was more aggressive in encouraging the members to engage in fasting and abstinence, as well as to be more sensitive in making sacrifices (e.g. quit smoking and drinking alcoholic drinks) as well as giving more alms to the poor. But in the contemporary world that has become more secularistic, Catholics are not as eager and committed to honoring the tenets of Lent.
It might not be a bad idea to bring the faithful again to a deeper awareness of the meaning of Lent, not just as a time to make sacrifices (through fasting and abstinence) but do be engaged in repentance of our sins that would bring about our reconciliation with God. This is the biblical notion of Atonement (see the book of Leviticus as to how the Jews of the Old Testament set aside days of rituals for this purpose). According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, atonement is “the process by which a person removes obstacles to his reconciliation with God. It is a recurring theme in the history o religion and theology. Rituals of expiation and satisfaction appear in most religions, whether primitive or developed, as the means by which the religious person reestablishes or strengthens his relation to the holy or divine. Atonement is often attached to sacrifice, both of which often connect ritual cleanness with moral purity and religious acceptability.”
(Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar is a professor teaching at St. Alphonsus Theological and Mission Institute (SATMI) in Davao City and the Ateneo de Davao University. Gaspar is author of several books, including “Desperately Seeking God’s Saving Action: Yolanda Survivors’ Hope Beyond Heartbreaking Lamentations” and two books on Davao history launched in December 2015 and Ordinary Lives, Lived Extraordinarily - Mindanawon Profiles. He writes this column for MindaNews) – To be continued.