Duck Season, Rabbit Season, Lenten Season

Walking to class a few days back, I saw a group out on Low Steps, proclaiming it to be "Jesus Week." I looked a little closer, and saw a sign proclaiming that "Jesus wept" and encouraging people to write up things they were sorry for and so forth. I went away feeling a little sad, especially since the event was sponsored by the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an amalgam of different Christian denominations on campus. I think Lent is a little more than "Jesus Week," some outward tearing of garments for your own salvation.

Yes, it's been the Lenten season these past 40-or-so days, that time when, according to many Christian traditions, Jesus went into the desert to be tempted by the devil. This Friday is Good Friday, the day of Jesus' death, and on the next Sunday, called Easter, most Christians celebrate the paschal mystery, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

I don't like to talk about my religious beliefs much, so I'll keep this brief: as a Catholic, this is my favorite time of year, because of what it proscribes to believers: temperance, tolerance, and humility. The gospel reading at the Roman Catholic mass on Ash Wednesday contains some of the greatest passages in the Bible. It opens with a wonderful caution from Jesus via Matthew: "take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that other people may see them." It's a case for good for the sake of good: if you want to pray, go into your room and close your door. If you choose to fast, don't walk around looking like you're miserable-make people think you're having the time of your life. In performing good works, "do not let your left hand know what your right is doing."

That chapter of Matthew, which reads almost like a Confucian selection of wisdoms, is filled with beautiful aphorisms and exhortations to inward retrospection rather than hypocritical prostration in the hopes of material rewards. Yet in apparent contrast to that stands the Book of Isaiah, a prophetic Old Testament text that's often read in the Advent season before Christmas. There, the eponymous prophet proclaims that "for Zion's sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch." If the prophet had the salvation of Jerusalem foremost in his mind, regardless of his detractors, shouldn't the rest of the "people of the book," as the Quran calls Christians and Jews, be equally interested in such a single-minded determination towards the salvation of their worlds, no matter what others say in response to their own proclamations?

There's a balance to be had in shouting for "vindication" and not letting your left hand know what your right is doing. In other words, despite the Protestant Reformation's well-meaning maxim that mere "works" weren't much compared to faith, it's worth noting that the "works" its key authors referred to as so abhorrent were largely the purchase of plenary indulgences-buying salvation rather than earning it through faith. (The Catholic Church still offers those, by the way. Not widely known. And you can't buy them. But they're out there-one soul's time in purgatory reduced via your intercession.) The "works" referred to in Matthew such as almsgiving are very public-cries for vindication and the betterment of all of society. But the faith involved in them is ideally private in Jesus' understanding. In other words, those wishing to save the world "for" their beliefs might be well-advised to save it in quiet accordance with their beliefs-not by hitting the rest of us over the head with them, as the lovely "Christian right" seems so intent on doing.

Whether you believe the Rapture to be just around the corner or just another lousy dance-pop band, a desire to better the world is probably better off coming from a genuine belief in the merits of that ideal rather than a belief that the ideology behind it must be accepted if the recipients of your betterment are to be "saved." I'm not saying religion shouldn't be discussed-I'm saying that true converts will come from those who lead by example and allow the question of motive and belief to come naturally from their good works, not by those frightened or cajoled into carrying signs in front of the Supreme Court.

I also certainly don't mean to compare those who are in charge of "Jesus Week" to the Christian right, either. They were very nice and well-meaning people. I just wonder if it might be better to put up a sign saying "what are you sorry for?" and allow people to really consider the question rather than make a faith-based judgment right off the bat. You might even get an interfaith dialogue on the nature of forgiveness and sin going without even realizing it. After all, the goals of the Lenten season-temperance, tolerance, and humility-are much better served by working with that same great dedication towards a better life for all, regardless of their professed beliefs. I think that we, regardless of what God we choose to believe or not believe in, owe each other both that strong desire for our world's "vindication" and that respect for the privacy of faith.