Giving, Not Giving Up : The Lenten Message on Ash Wednesday Is One of Service

Kraig Kelsey, a juvenile crimes detective for the local Police Department, stood outside a neighborhood church and contemplated the themes of abstinence and sacrifice most commonly associated with Lent. He came up with a resolution instead.

“I need to try to see the positive side of people,” he said. “There is a lot of stress in my job and you tend to be let down by people a lot. I have to remember that they have good sides too.”

Kelsey was one of thousands of Orange County worshipers who went to local Christian churches on Ash Wednesday. He reevaluated the purpose of Lent, the 40-day period commemorating the time Jesus fasted in the wilderness.

“It’s not necessarily about giving something up for 40 days,” Kelsey said. “It’s about purifying the soul.”

The message echoed those delivered by priests throughout the county.

“We mustn’t sacrifice for sacrifice’s sake,” Father Malcolm Smith told a full house at the Roman Catholic Holy Family Cathedral in Orange. “We need to benefit spiritually from the experience by lifting the lives of others--or ourselves.”

Though some parishioners such as Kelsey are heeding that advice, a good many still opt for the usual Lent vows against candy, fried foods and alcohol--much to the chagrin of church officials.

“Sweets. That’s all I can commit to [giving up] right now,” said Larraine Etzold of Santa Ana.

But the church strives to educate its members that the message of Lent is more than giving up simple vices until Easter.

“People need to realize that Lent isn’t a time to avoid certain things,” said Father Arthur A. Holquin, rector of the Holy Family Cathedral. “It is a time to do certain things.

“It’s easy to abstain from something that is bad for you. When you become accustomed to a ritual, you begin to take it for granted.”

Elizabeth Johnson, an insurance claims adjuster in Orange who resolved to “stop berating people,” agreed. “We are so spoiled these days,” she said. “We have it too easy. People really made sacrifices in the past.”

Indeed, religion historians note, Lent once involved abstaining from food entirely on Ash Wednesday and consuming only bread, water and the occasional meat dish during the 40-day observance, which ends on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter.

In the 5th century, formerly wayward Christians seeking readmittance into the church were made to do penance for 40 days before they were baptized again the night before Easter.

Wearing only a sackcloth during that entire period, the penitents were ostracized by other members of the church until they were blessed on the forehead with the now familiar ashen cross associated with the observance.

The palm tree ashes serve to remind followers of the frailty of their mortality and of how Jesus triumphed over that frailty through his Easter morning resurrection, church officials said.

“The regimen was much more severe in the past,” Holquin said. “Abstinence from food signified a spiritual hunger that only Christ could satisfy.”

According to Father Brad Karelius, who teaches a course on world religions at Saddleback College, a “spiritual hunger” exists now more than ever.

“There is a greater need today to regain our spiritual sanity,” he said.

During a sermon at Santa Ana’s Episcopal Church of the Messiah, Karelius exhorted a congregation of about 150 people to alter their Lenten practices completely.

“I tell them about my annual trips to Death Valley,” he said.

“That is where I meditate or read Scriptures from the Bible.

“If you separate yourself from your regular surroundings, you’re able to connect spiritually to the simplest of God’s creations, like a shrub in the desert.”

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The Meaning of Lent

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a period of prayer, self-sacrifice and fasting observed by many Christians. The date for Ash Wednesday is set in relation to Easter. More facts:

* Lent dates to at least the 4th century.

* Ash Wednesday became the first day of Lent when Sundays were omitted from fasting; Pope Gregory I added four days to return the total fasting days to 40.

* Forty days was chosen because the figure is mentioned in several events described in the Bible, including Christ’s 40-day fast in the desert and Moses’ 40 days on Mt. Sinai.

* In some denominations, priests mix ashes with holy water, then make the mark of the cross on worshipers’ foreheads to remind them of being dust and ashes.

* The word Lent comes from words meaning “spring” and “long” and may refer to longer days as spring approaches.

* In Eastern Orthodox churches, Lent begins on a Monday, which is sometimes called “Pure Monday” or “Clean Monday.”

* The Lenten season excludes Sundays in Western churches, Saturdays and Sundays in Eastern churches.

Sources: The American Book of Days, 3rd Edition, and World Book Encyclopedia