March 12 – Dazzling



What is permitted during Lent?

Each year I read about the ritual of burying the hallelujah before the season of Lent begins. Signifying the somber tone of these six weeks, we refrain from singing out praises to God. Believe it or not.

It is a funny tradition. I read that in centuries past, church people took this little prohibition and turned it into a grand ceremony. A coffin was made to be carried out of the sanctuary by children. They moaned and wailed as they carried the coffin out of the church and laid it in the ground, vigorously mourning the death of the hallelujah. The priests would not take part in the ritual, unseemly as it was. But, apparently, they didn’t stop it either.

I guess there is a sense that we ought to kill joy during Lent. But I think we all know that you can’t kill joy.

Nonetheless, we try. We make Lent a wilderness for our senses. We forgo tasty foods, we silence the songs of joyful praise. Playing out as it does on the dreary canvas of late winter, in which nature is almost a black and white photograph, even our eyes are deprived of pleasure.

We begin to forget what color is.

Until we see little bunches of daffodils along the roadside – where did that come from? And we see a bright red cardinal or a yellow warbler in the bare tree branches. They are dazzling in their beauty.

I’m glad nature gives us gifts that dazzle our eyes during the darkest season. Even during Lent – especially during Lent – we need signs of hope, the promise that life breathes on.


Photo: By KentuckyKevin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40323432

Comments

  1. Carol MontgomeryMarch 12, 2019 at 2:29 PM

    Today when the sun finally blessed us, I can see the tiny green buds on my trees. Even though winter is a somber, sometimes colorless season, the absolute joy I have when I see signs of spring gives me hope.

    ReplyDelete

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