The season of Lent begins today with the observance of Ash Wednesday.
A 40-day period excluding Sundays that culminates in the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord and the Easter season. It traditionally was a time for new believers to prepare for Christian baptism — the sacrament of initiation into relationship with God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and the Christian family, the body of Christ, his Church.
Lenten practices also include an emphasis on repentance through fasting, prayer and monetary offerings for the poor (alms-giving).
It begins with the remembrance that we are dust and to dust we return. You may see some foreheads with a black smudge. That is a sign of the cross in remembrance of baptism to remind us to whom we belong and what is required of us — to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.
In keeping with the spirit of the Lenten season his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI released Part II of his new book "Jesus of Nazareth" where he denounces Jew-hatred and the once held belief Jews were "collectively" responsible as a people for the crime of deicide, the crucifixion of Jesus. He clearly points out through the Gospel texts this is a false teaching. Indeed, it is an historical irony that the Christian faith born from Jewish roots and which clearly states in its creeds that Jesus was crucified under the authority of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, laid the foundation for European anti-Semitism. Martin Luther, the spiritual father of Protestantism, reflects such views in his writings and which the Lutheran Church later repudiated. Was there Jewish complicity in the death of Jesus, obviously, but an entire people? No.
Perhaps this Lent it is a time to return to basics. Apart from the Jews we Christians would have no Bible. We take it for granted but what we call the Old Testament was Jesus' and the apostles' only Bible. The New Testament was a commentary on how God's promises were fulfilled in Jesus and how all peoples were now called to faith in God through him.
It is stating the obvious but Jesus, as were his first disciples, was a Jew, a faithful son of the covenant raised in the scriptures and customs of his people. As Jesus himself said, "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22). And he said that to someone of a different faith — a Samaritan.
There have always been voices of revisionism to cut out sections of the Bible that offend somebody's sensibilities but the Church has rightly resisted such efforts. The Bible is what it is. It is God's word to us compiled over 1,500 years with more than 40 different authors. We can't change it. But we can repent of our misuse of it.
St. Paul said that Israel is as the root of a rich olive tree and as a young shoot we have been grafted in (Romans 11:17). It is well to remember from whence we were hewn.
