Many Christians observe the last few Sundays before Lent as “pre-Lenten” Sundays. This might look slightly daft: After all, Lent is itself a period of preparation for Easter, and if we need a time of preparation for the time of preparation, perhaps we also need a pre-pre-Lent to prepare for pre-Lent. It threatens to become an infinite regression.
Yet, the Christians who designed the church calendar with all its halting beginnings displayed a great deal of wisdom. Among other things, the pre-Lenten Sundays help to head off any notion that the Lenten fast will be a matter of heroic spirituality. The BCP collect for the wonderfully named “Sunday Next before Lent” reads:
“O Lord, who hast taught us that all our works without love are worth nothing: Send Your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever lives is counted dead before thee: Grant this for the sake of Your only Son Jesus Christ. Amen.”
For anyone paying attention, this is a blunt reminder that the Lenten fast that begins on Ash Wednesday is nothing without love, and that the love that gives a fast its focus is a gift of the Spirit. The periods of pre-festive preparation that mark the church calendar are a reminder that we can come to the feast only if we are clothed appropriately; the pre-preparation periods that mark the church calendar are a reminder that we come to be clothed rightly only by grace.
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