CHRHSTIAN PERSPECTIVES

Three Major pillars in the season of Lent:

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving

Fr. Indra Fernando, Parish Priest, Batagama

The three major pillars of Lenten observance are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. They are to be understood in relation to the baptismal promises, thus the importance of our baptism as Christians is echoed.

Once we attempt to understand about Prayer, basically it is the way of communication with God in a powerful way; the rapport one establishes with the Divine. More time given to prayer especially in this season should draw us more and more closely to the Abba Experience.

We are got to pray especially for the grace to live out our baptismal promises more fully. Also it is our duty to pray for all those who will celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation in this season, so that they will be truly renewed in their baptismal commitment.

Fasting is one of the most ancient practices linked to Lent. Indeed, the paschal fast predates Lent in a peculiar manner. The early Church fasted intensely for two days before the celebration of the Easter Vigil. This fast was later extended I would say and it became a 40-day period of fasting leading up to Easter. Vatican II called us to renew the observance of the ancient paschal fast.

"...Let the paschal fast be kept sacred. Let it be celebrated everywhere on Good Friday and, where possible, prolonged throughout Holy Saturday, so that the joys of the Sunday of the Resurrection may be attained with uplifted and clear mind".

Fasting is more than a means of developing self-control, it is often an aid to prayer, as the pangs of hunger remind us of our hunger for God. The first reading on the Friday after Ash Wednesday points out another important dimension of fasting. The prophet Isaiah insists that fasting without changing our behaviour is not pleasing to God.

"This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own" (Is58:6-7).

Fasting should be linked to our concern for those who are forced to fast by their poverty, those who suffer from the injustices of our economic and political structures, those who are in need for any reason.

Thus fasting, too, is linked to living out our baptismal promises. By our Baptism, we are charged with a great responsibility of showing Christ's love to the world, especially to those in need. Fasting can help us in realizing the suffering that so many people in our world experience every day, and it should lead us to greater efforts to alleviate this kind of unnecessary suffering.

Abstaining from meat traditionally also links us to the poor, who could seldom afford meat for their meals. It can do the same today if we do remember the purpose of abstinence and embrace it as a spiritual link to those whose diets are sparse and simple.

That should be the goal we set for ourselves - a sparse and simple meal. Avoiding meat while eating lobster misses the whole point; it will be a real joke. Yet in the present context of our society this idea may be bit irrelevant. So called the prevailing economic structure in a way leads the majority of the people for compulsory fasting whether we like it or not.

Almsgiving as the third traditional pillar, is linked to our baptismal commitment. It is a sign of our care for those in need and an expression of our gratitude for all that God has given to us. Works of charity and the promotion of justice are integral elements of the Christian way of life we did begin when we were baptized.

The purpose of this act should inevitably lead the one who receives satisfied. When we are engaged in this act especially in this season, we are got to remember well about the demand of Jesus who had transformed the meaning of emphasizing of its 'top-secret nature'.

Lent as a period of God's grace to the faithful in a special way, has to be lived in an authentic manner. Hence, let's make a sincere attempt to be 'grace-filled' people, that means to be pleasant before God all the time in life.

Lenten feast at Talawila

Antony Fernando, Puttalam district, Roving correspondent

The annual Lenten Feast of Talawila St. Anne's Church will be held on March 9 under the patronage of Chilaw Bishop Most Rev. Valence Mendis and Bishop Emeritus Frank Marcus Fernando.

A special service will be held in this connection on March 8 at 7 p.m. and on March 9 at 8 a.m. Parish Priest Rev. Fr. Luke Nelson said this year's ceremonies began with the flag hoisting ceremony on March 2.

The Puttalam, Ja-Ela, Negombo and Wennappuwa CTB Depots will operate special bus service for the convenience of devotees attending the feast while the CGR has arranged special train services from Colombo to Puttalam. Security will be strengthened with the deployment of 600 policemen and civil defence volunteers during the feast.

Vatican says Pope to name four saints in October

Pope Benedict XVI will name four saints in October including the first Indian candidate, Sister Anna Muttathupanadathu, the Vatican said Saturday.

The Pope announced the date, October 12, at an ordinary consistory of Vatican City-based cardinals, the Vatican statement said.

Muttathupandathu, known as Blessed Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception, was a nun from Kerala, southern India, of the Congregation of Poor Clares of the Third Order of St Francis who lived from 1910 to 1946.

Benedict's predecessor John Paul II beatified her - the stepping stone to sainthood - in 1986.

The pontiff will also canonise Gaetano Errico (1791-1860), the Neopolitain founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who was beatified in April 2002.

The founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of Mary Help of Christians, Maria Bernarda Buetler (1848-1924) of Switzerland, beatified in 1995, will also be made a saint.

The fourth new saint will be Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran, an Ecuadorian lay woman who was beatified in 1992.

After devoting her life to prayer and penance to God in expiation for mankind's sins, she died aged 37 in 1869.

Vatican City, AFP

Fr. Pio's body exhumed after 40 years

The body of the mystic monk Padre Pio, one of the Roman Catholic world's most revered saints who died 40 years ago, has been exhumed to be prepared for display to his many devotees.

The body of the Capuchin friar, who was said to have had the stigmata - the wounds of Christ's crucifixion - on his hands and feet - is to be conserved and put in a part-glass coffin for at least several months from April 24.

A Church statement said the body was in "fair condition", particularly the hands, which Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio,.who witnessed the exhumation in the southern Italian town where Pio died, said "looked like they had just undergone a manicure".

A spokesman for the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo said he believed morticians would be able to conserve the face of the bearded monk well enough for it to be recognisable.

The body, which had been buried under marble in a crypt, was exhumed during a three-hour service that ended after midnight.

A Catholic magazine once found that far more Italian Catholics prayed to Padre Pio than to any other icon of the faith, including the Virgin Mary or Jesus. Some 7 million people visit his tomb every year. There are some 3,000 "Padre Pio Prayer Groups" around the world, with a membership of around 3 million.

The friar, born Francesco Forgione, died in 1968 aged 81. Among the stories that surround him is one that he wrestled with the devil in his monastery cell.

Padre Pio is also said to have predicted future events, to have been seen in two places at once, and to have been able to tell people their sins before they confessed them to him.

Pope John Paul II made him a saint in 2002 at a ceremony that drew one of the biggest crowds ever to the Vatican after the Church said it had found evidence that the miraculous cure of a sick woman was due to the dead monk's intercession.

But Padre Pio was dogged during his life and even after his death by accusations that he was a fraud.

A new book last year suggested he was a self-harming man who may have used carbolic acid to create wounds in his hands mimicking those of Christ when he was nailed to the cross.

Church officials have repeatedly denied that he was a fake. Rome, Reuters

Education will make good citizens - Galle Bishop

Kumara Udayarathna, Yakkalamulla special correspodnet

The level of education of a school does not become high by only providing physical resources. For that purpose the students must study well.

It will make good citizens of the country and will also be a good investment for the future, said Rt. Rev. Harold Anthony Perera, the Bishop of Galle of the Southern Province Catholic Church. He was speaking after handing over the new two storied building constructed at the Kahawa Rathanasara School at a cost of Rs. 15 million by the Caritas SED Galle, the social and economic development centre of the Southern Province Catholic Church.

We deposit money in a bank for future investment.

When children get their education at school, that too is a future investment. However many buildings are provided if we are to reap the proper fruits of that, the children getting the education there, the teachers and parents must work with commitment.

Also they should follow the social principles or values like respecting each other and being cordial. The Rev. Bishop of Galle further said that it will be a cause of the well-being of society.

Vijitha Mendis, Principal, Rev. Fr. Damian Fernando, Caritas National Director Rev. Fr. Damian Arsakularathna, Director, Caritas SED Galle, Ann Boske, Sri Lanka Representative of the Catholic Relief Service and the school teachers and students participated on the occasion.

The purgation of fasting

Miran Perera

Fasting is another form of worship found universally in the world religious. Although there are vast differences regarding the mode of fasting and the conditions applied to it the central idea of fasting is present everywhere.

Where it is not mentioned dearly it is likely that it may gradually have either been discontinued or have petered out through gradual decay in practice. Fasting teaches all the principle of sincere love because when he observes the fasting he does it out of deep love for God, and the man who loves God truely is a man who really knows what love is.

Fasting equips man with a creative sense of hope and an optimistic outlook on life because when he fasts he is hoping to please God and is seeking his grace. It saturates man with a genuine virtue of effective devotion, honest dedication and closeness to God because when he fasts he does so for God and for his sake alone.

The case of Lord Buddha is an interesting example. Buddha started his quest for truth with a severe form of fasting but later on it is said that he abandoned his practice because it had adversely affected his health. In view of this one can understand why he discontinued but this does not in anyway indicate that he had ceased to believe in fasting.

Perhaps that is why some Buddhist still observe some form of fasting.

Souls strengthened

In the Holy Bible it is written in (Matthew 4:2) that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights and afterwards was hungry.

The tempter the devil then came and said to him; 'If you are the son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread and Jesus answered which is now a famous saying; It is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. As said in the Acts of the Apostles (14:23) the Apostles strengthened the souls of all disciples and exhorted them to continue their faith and emphasised that through many tribulations that they should enter the kingdom of God.

They appointed elders in every church with prayers and fasting and they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed. In Islam fasting is a highly developed institution and needs to be studied in depth.

In Islam there are two types of injunctions with regards to fasting. One relates to obligatory fasting and the other to optional. Fasting cultivates in man a vigilant and sound conscience because the fasting person keeps his fast in secret as well as in public.

In fasting specially there is no mundane authority to check mans behaviour or compel him to observe the fasting. He keeps it to please God and satisfy his own conscience by being faithfull in secret and in public. There is no better way to cultivate a sound conscience in man. Some keep fasts now and then particularly when they are in trouble.

As it is expected the prayers offered in fasting are more productive and some people keep extra fasts to ward off their problems. But some do it only for the sake of wining Gods special favours.

There are no limits to this except that it is strongly discouraged to those who had vowed to fast continuously for their whole life. Fasting often indoctrinates man in patience and unselfishness because when he fasts he feels the pain of deprivation but endures patiently.

Turely this deprivation may be only temporary yet there is no doubt that the experience makes him realise the severe effects of such pains on others who might be deprived of essential commodities for days or weeks or probably months together.

Experience

The meaning of this experience in a social and humanitarian sense is that such a person is much quicker than anybody else in sympathizing with his fellow men and responding to their needs.

This is an eloquent expression of unselfishness and genuine sympathy. In the Holy Bible the Prophet zachariah interpreting the Lord says: (8:19) fast! and you shall bring to the house of Judah seasons of Joy and gladness and cheerful feasts, therefore love truth and peace.

The Holy Bible describes in Exodus (34: 28) that our Lord said to Moses; 'In accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and Israel and Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights and he neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Fasting is an effective lesson in applied moderation and will power. The person who observes his fasting properly is certainly a man who can discipline his passionate desires and place himself above physical temptations. Such is the man of personality and character, the man of will power and self determination.

It provides man with a transparent soul to transcend a clear mind to think and light, a body to move and act. All this is the never failing result and intellectual experience attest to this fack.

There is one full month in every year in which fasting is prescribed for Muslims all over the world. As the month is a lunar month so it keeps changing around the year in relation to the solar months. This creates a universal balance for the worshippers.

Sometimes the fasting in winter months is easy as far as the days go in comparison to the long winter nights while during the summer months the days become long and exacting.

As the lunar months keep rotating around the year so Muslims in all parts of the world have some periods of easy fasting and some of arduous fasting. In Islam almsgiving and care for the destitute is so highly emphasised that it becomes part of a Muslims daily life.

However when it comes to Ramadhan the month of fasting Muslims are required to redouble their efforts in this field. It is reported of the Holy Porphet that spending in the cause of poor was a routine daily practice with him which has been likened unto a breeze, never ceasing to bring comfort and solace to the needy.

However during Ramadhan the reporters of the 'Ahadith' - the sayings of the Holy Prophet remind us that the breeze seemed to pick up seed and began to blow like strong winds.

Almsgiving

Almsgiving and care for the destitute are so highly emphasised that in no period during the year do Muslims engage in such philanthropic purposes as they do during the month of Ramadhan (2. Samuel 12:16) of the Bible describes how when God made sick the child of David he besought God for the child and fasted laying all night upon the ground, and he would not or nor did he eat food with the elders, so fasting.

In (1. Kings 19:8) the Bible describes an occasion where Eliyah fasted forty days and forty nights at Horeb the mount of God.

Fasting shows man anew way of wise savings and sound budgeting because normally when he eats less quantity or less meal he sends less money and effort. This is spiritual semester of home economics and budgeting. Fasting enables man to master the art of mature adaptability.

We can easily understand the point once we realise that fasting makes man change the entire course of his daily life. When he makes the change he naturally adapts himself to a new system and moves along to satisfy the new rules.

This in the long run develops in him a wise sense of adaptability and self created power to overcome the unpredictable hardships of life. A man who values constructive adaptability and courage will readily appreciate the effects of fasting in this respect.

The institution of fasting is extremely important because it cultivates the believer in almost every area of his spiritual life.

Among other things he learns through personal experience about what hunger, poverty, loneliness and discomforts mean to the less fortunate Sections of society.