Once upon a time, there was a Christian church, origins of which are chronicled in the New Testament's "Acts of the Apostles." While not all the members of the new church thought the same, they developed a prayer, worship and liturgical life that developed with a basic and essential sense of unity for a thousand years.Then, in 1054, came the split that divided the Christians into Catholics and Orthodox. Almost 500 years later, the Reformation began a process that would see Christian churches - nearly all of them trying to be and look very un-Catholic - springing up in Europe and, eventually, around the globe.
While tenets and beliefs remained more or less in harmony, liturgical traditions generally became far simpler in the reformed churches and their many spinoffs.
For Roman Catholics, the pre-Easter season of Lent might have been characterized as the season of fish sticks and ashes; for Protestants, relatively much less.
But in recent years, there's been a bit of an ecumenical shift among all mainstream churches in all seasons of the liturgical year. Catholics do things and sing songs that once were part of Protestant worship and some Protestants are reconsidering the role of Mary, rosaries and the Ash Wednesday-Lent observation.
A group of local ministers meets weekly to share observations and understanding of things related to Scripture and those several elements of their Christian faith that are common. They base their two-hour or so gathering on the lectionary, a set of Old and New testament readings for Sunday worship shared by Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ and other denominations.
Members of the lectionary group, about two decades old, call the weekly meeting "The Seed Farm," insofar as the informal discussions find fallow ground for ideas among its members and inevitably bear fruit in sermon material and individual ministries.
On Wednesday, the 11 or so participants, according to one of them, will conclude their meeting and discussion of Lent by sharing the imposition of ashes on each others' foreheads, not a whole lot different from what millions of Catholics and Anglicans around the world also will be doing that day.
What's impressive, listening to one of the group's members - the Rev. Alex Howard, pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Episcopal Church - is not that the gathering of Episcopalians, a Mennonite, a Disciple of Christ, quite a few Methodists and a Presbyterian, are ecumenically minded, but that they are reaching into all Christian churches' roots to find again what might be of value to them as ministers and to their people as believers.
Said Howard, when reflecting on his and the other group's members' appreciation of Lent: "I think we want the people in our congregation to be able to step back from the business of the usual world and see what it means to be more spiritually connected to Christ.
If, for example, we do those weekly soup lunches or dinners, it is to use Lent to think about those who have less and who hunger - and presumably for us to do something about it." Howard said he sees the traditional act of "giving something up for Lent" in a more positive light: "If I'm able to take a pass on my usual cup of Starbucks coffee and divert that money into something positive - giving it to an agency that helps the poor or directly to someone who needs help, I think that that is more in accord with Christian practice. It's not only mortification, but it's reaching out, as Christ would have done, too."
Several Pueblo churches, not only Roman Catholic ones, are scheduling Ash Wednesday services for next week. If, at work or at the mall and grocery store, you see someone with that telltale black smudge on his or her forehead, don't take it for granted that you're seeing a Roman Catholic.
The times, they are a-changin', they say, and Lent in some churches is regaining its centuries-old meaning and importance.
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