Bishop Terry’s Pastoral Letter for Lent 2023

Lent 2023

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

You probably wouldn’t sing Christmas carols on your summer holidays. They would be out of place. More than likely, you wouldn’t turn up for a wedding wearing your gardening or DIY clothes. It just wouldn’t be respectful. If you have invited friends round for a nice relaxing evening, you wouldn’t think of painting the dinning room part way through the meal. It wouldn’t be the right time or occasion. Yet so often, our celebrations of Lent, Holy Week, and in particular the Triduum are treated as if they were just ordinary, everyday events and celebrations. Nothing special. Just run of the mill. This surely can’t be right?

Let’s just hear what the Church tells us about the Triduum. The Triduum transcends all other days, beyond “feast” or “solemnity”, beyond even Holy Days of Obligation. The liturgical spirit sees within the Paschal Triduum a festival that gives meaning and life to all festivals, that contains within itself the mystery of all other days and seasons. And of all the celebrations within the Triduum, the Easter Vigil stands out par excellence.

The Easter Vigil is the most important liturgy of the year. It is a celebration of our faith in the resurrection, the cornerstone of our belief. Ranking highest among the celebrations of the liturgical year, it should rank highest in the spiritual life of us all. The entire Vigil takes place at night. The lateness of the hour and the length of the Vigil cause inconvenience for some of us. It is hoped, however, that the Vigil is the kind of experience for which people willingly inconvenience themselves. On some special occasion we give up sleep or relaxation for entertainment, family, or friends. At the Vigil we give up sleep and personal convenience for faith. One of the symbols of the Easter Vigil is its length. We take time for community prayer around this mystery of resurrection because nothing else natters more. Hearing the readings will be a challenge to many of us who are unaccustomed to them, but together the readings convey more fully the mystery of God’s plan of salvation, while they give the sense of what a vigil is.

The Vigil is the culmination of all Lenten efforts and sacrifices. It cannot just be treated as another Saturday Evening Mass. For this reason, every year I offer strong advice and suggestion as to the earliest time the Easter Vigil Mass should begin. It isn’t just on a whim or to be awkward; it isn’t to cause inconvenience or to be objectionable. It is so that we can celebrate the most important liturgical event of our spiritual and Church life in an efficacious and solemn way.

While I know that the advice is ignored by some and bemoaned by others – I have the many letters on my desk to remind me – I still offer the strong advice that the Vigil this year should not begin before nightfall which is around 8.30 p.m. There should be no celebration of Mass on Holy Saturday before this time.

In a world that is so busy and self-absorbed, in a culture where God and the spiritual are not given a second thought, in a Society where the place of worship and religious celebration are given scant notice, let’s take time and make effort to recall the great mysteries of our salvation. Let’s make the words of that beautiful Lenten and Passiontide hymn our own: