For too many of the baptized, the meaning and purpose of Great Lent are misunderstood, and therefore the great spiritual fruits are missed. While in the Church of the West the Forty-Day period of the fast which precedes Holy Week is called Lent, the term “Great Lent” is the name given to it in the Eastern Churches, including those in communion with Rome. Therefore, “Great Lent” is equally a Catholic liturgical term.

In addition to a misunderstood season, there is also a key Christian word that is too often misapprehended—the word “symbol.” This brief essay will first examine the meaning of the word symbol and then proceed to discuss its relationship to Great Lent.

Meaning of a Word

As with so much of the Church’s lexicon, in order to grasp the fuller context and meaning of words, one needs to delve into their etymological roots and original usage. In this case, the language is Greek. Symbol is derived from the Greek word symbolon (σύμβολον). The word is a combination of two words: sym and bolo. Sym means together, unite, correspond, or with. One can see this prefix in various English words such as symphony—sounds joined together; or symbiotic—living things mutually benefiting each other. Bolo in Greek means to throw or put together. The word symbolon therefore means literally to throw together into one or to join two pieces to make a whole.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his book Introduction to Christianity, notes that the ancient Church called the baptismal profession of faith, the Symbol of Faith. A closer examination of the reason for this attribution will help one grasp the meaning of the word symbolon.

Ratzinger writes: “A symbolon is something that points to its complementary other half and thus creates mutual recognition and unity. It is the expression and means of unity.”¹ In other words, when the person to be baptized recited the Symbol of Faith, that person was uniting himself or herself to a common faith and a common form of worship. It was de facto uniting oneself to someone else, in this case to God and his Church. In a way, the words of the one to be baptized are joined to the Word of God. And the baptized person is not only joined to God but also to all the others who have made that same profession and have been baptized. Thus, the word symbolon aptly captures this reality—it is the joining together of complementary halves. One can then see how the act of faith is necessarily communal rather than individualistic.²

The Church Is Symbolon

If symbolon means the joining together, then one can see how the Church is the symbolon in the world. The Church is the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with all creation sharing in some capacity in that communion. While it was yet to be completed, the communion of God with his creation is depicted in the first two chapters of Genesis before Adam and Eve sinned. Not only was there communion between the Creator and creation, but an intimate friendship also existed specifically between the Triune God and the human person.³

When Adam and Eve sinned, however, the original communion was ruptured. The four great relationships were broken: 1) the relationship between God and the human person, 2) the relationship of a human person within himself or herself, 3) the relationship with one’s neighbor, and 4) the relationship of the human person with creation. The Greek word that describes those ruptured relationships is diabolos (διάβολος). The English word is diabolical. The word is a combination of two Greek words, dia which means across, and ballo again which means to throw. Diabolical therefore means literally to throw apart or to separate. It is the antithesis to both the very Being of the Communitarian God and to symbolon. The first sin of Adam and Eve literally threw apart the four great relationships.

The work of salvation history is God rejoining the two broken pieces, restoring what had been thrown apart—it is the work of symbolon. Those who have been restored to communion with the Holy Trinity are the members of the Church. Thus, one can see how the Church is the symbolon in the world, which is creation restored to communion and participation in divine life.

St. Paul summarizes aptly the telos or final end of salvation history in his first letter to the Church of Corinth: “God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). The Book of Revelation also depicts well the telos or end of salvation history and how everything is moving toward symbolon. The holy visionary writes: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God Himself will be with them as their God’” (Revelation 21:1-2).

The holy visionary saw the culmination of salvation history—symbolon. The old order of the diabolical, the order of broken relationships that has wrought tears, pain, and death (Revelation 21:4) caused by disordered acts of self-love, has passed away, giving way to the new order. The new order is a new earth and a new heaven joined together, and the new city of Jerusalem descends from Heaven and joins earth (the joining of two separate parts, which are nevertheless complementary).

Who will not be a part of that symbolon? Later in the same chapter of the Book of Revelation, the holy visionary transcribes: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). The list of sinners signifies the unrepentant, whose sinful acts severed the communion of some or all of the four great relationships. They were diabolical acts. Because they had broken communion, when they fell asleep and passed into eternity, they were not sharers in the communion of the Holy Trinity and the family of God, the communion of saints. Instead, they experienced the second death which is the ultimate and final separation from all the living.

Symbolon and Great Lent

In the Roman Missal of 1962 for the commemoration of Ash Wednesday, there are two blessings that the priest-celebrant recites over the ashes. In the reformed Roman Liturgy, both prayers have been retained in the third edition of the Roman Missal in English (2010); however, the priest-celebrant recites only one of them. The second option is most apropos to symbolon and the Holy Season of Great Lent. Perhaps a renewed understanding of the ancient Christian word symbolon will put into context all the reasons for the season and urge the baptized faithful to practice more wholeheartedly the penitential acts associated with it. The prayer reads: “O God, who desire not the death of sinners, but their conversion, mercifully hear our prayers and in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes, which we intend to receive upon our heads, that we, who acknowledge we are but ashes and shall return to dust, may, through a steadfast observance of Lent, gain pardon for sins and newness of life after the likeness of your Risen Son.”

The prayer begins with a statement of faith: God does not desire the death of the sinner—the eternal separation of the sinner from Himself. That would be diabolical. On the contrary, God desires the sinner’s conversion (which is a turning to the One Who is Life) because God desires communion with his beloved children. That is symbolon. Later the prayer mentions the twofold reasons for the steadfast observance: 1) to gain pardon for sins—to rid ourselves of that which in our lives ruptures communion and therefore is diabolical; 2) to gain newness of life—and who is life but God? This is communion and is accomplished through symbolon.

Great Lent, therefore, is about symbolon. Those who have not become partakers of the life of the Holy Trinity and the communion of saints are invited in this season to make that happen by participating in the Rites of Christian Initiation; for those who may have fallen away, now is the time to rise (a return to Sunday liturgy and a good Confession are the places to begin); and for those who are living in this communion, now is the time to strengthen and forge those four relationships. Therein lies the reason for the three practices of greater prayer, greater fasting, and greater acts of charity (almsgiving). Practicing more forthrightly all three ascetical efforts strengthens the four relationships:

• Prayer is about greater communion with God. Often during prayer our minds and hearts become distracted. It can show how far our hearts are from God at times.
• Fasting is about a right relationship with creation, how we use it, and how we reverence it. The struggle to abstain from various foods and fasting from certain quantities of food can reveal how much one prefers earthly manna to that of the heavenly manna, as well as one’s inordinate loves or desires of the stomach.
• Acts of charity are about a greater awareness of our neighbors and their needs. It could also mean rectifying broken relationships. The struggle to be selflessly generous toward one’s neighbor can demonstrate how attached one may have become to certain earthly possessions or personal ego.

God’s Presence Made Visible

Rightly then the Church can be called the Symbolon of God’s presence in the world. It is a visible sign of an invisible reality: the restored union of God with his People and creation. While the Church has many names: the Body of Christ, the household of God, the communion of saints, etc.; nonetheless, what stands behind them all is the same reality—Symbolon—a joining together into one.

The Season of Great Lent is a particular time dedicated to restoring and strengthening that symbolon both as the Body of Christ and personally. It is the season par excellence to remove from our hearts and minds anything and everything that hinders, ruptures, or stifles the four great relationships. To the degree that happens in our personal lives, we will experience what the prayer of blessing over the ashes petitions: newness of life after the likeness of the Father’s Risen Son. It will be that new order where there are no more tears, pain, or death, but rather the joining together of the new heaven and the new earth.

_{^{Image Source: AB/Ford Madox Brown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}}

1. Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 97.
2. For a fuller explanation see Introduction to Christianity, 96-100.
3. While Genesis 3:8 describes God as seeking the human person after the Fall, according to the Church Fathers, it implies that a harmonious relationship had existed before the Fall—the image of walking together depicts a friendship. See for example St. Theophilus of Antioch to Autolycus Book II, Chapter XXII; St. Irenaeus of Lyons, On Apostolic Preaching, paragraph 12; and St. Augustine addresses the topic in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis.