Why Lent?

WHY LENT?

A Brief Little Christian Educational Forum

To Everything There Is a Season
There are six great liturgical seasons in the calendar of the Western Church: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time (the season of the Church) after Pentecost. Lent is a time of fasting, repentance, grief, and catechesis. Its color is purple.

Pregnant with Meaning
The season of Lent lasts 40 days, from Ash Wednesday right up to the Easter Vigil—not including Sundays. Sundays are feast days, and not properly included in a fast. 40 is a number of spiritual significance: 40 days and 40 nights of rain for Noah, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for Israel, 40 days of temptation for Jesus Christ.

This is because ancient peoples knew that it takes roughly 40 weeks for a pregnant woman to come to term. 40 represents a time of pain, growth, and struggle resulting in new life and new birth. Most Christians call this season Quadragesima, “Fortieth.” The word Lent, in English, has the same root as “length,” and refers to springtime.

In the Beginning
In the earliest days of the Church, there were only two holidays: Sunday and Passover. Every Sunday was a little Passover, and Passover was Sunday for the year. For Christians, Passover (Pascha in Greek) refers to Jesus’ Last Supper, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Only in Germanic languages do we call Pascha “Easter,” related to the word “east.”

Hard and Fast
It soon became traditional to baptize new Christians at the Easter Vigil. This is still a focus of the Easter Vigil service today. As most new Christians in the early Church would be baptized as adults, a period of prayer, preparation, fasting, and instruction evolved. Lent began as a season for the catechumenate, students who were Christians-to-be.

Over time, however, existing Christians, who had already been baptized, joined this period of fasting and repentance in solidarity with the catechumenate. This became a regular practice in the Church, one of several great fasts throughout the year. Lent included disciplines of fasting (eating less) and abstinence (avoiding certain foods).

Not So Fast
Fasting is a nigh-universal spiritual discipline. It mortifies the flesh to focus on the spirit. It is also considered the “athletic” dimension of faith, training us for hardship, to make small voluntary sacrifices so that when necessity arose great sacrifices could be made. As Jesus taught us, “He who is faithful in a little is faithful also in much.”

Western fasting has always been laxer (or perhaps more reasonable) than the “black fasts” of the Christian East. The biggest difference is that liquids are not restricted. Milk, tea, coffee, juice, and beer are all perfectly acceptable in Western fasts. Medieval monks would often spend 40 days living on beer such as “liquid bread” doppelbock.

One Last Bash Before the Ash
Since Lent kicks off on Ash Wednesday, the night before became a time of revelry: an indulgence in flesh, fat, alcohol, oil, and other foods restricted over 40 days. This goes by many names: Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fastnacht, and Carnival (“flesh, away”). At certain times, “flesh” included sex, from which Christians theoretically were to abstain.

Lenten disciplines have fallen by the wayside in modern culture, but Mardi Gras is going strong. Perhaps one should be less concerned with what to give up as with what discipline to take on: reading, prayer, and charity are all hallmarks of the Lenten season. So too is catechetical instruction. Lent places an emphasis on Christian education.

The Great Three Days
At heart, Lent exists as one big build-up to the Resurrection. It culminates in the Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. These three together make up a unique liturgical event—the great Passover of Our Lord from death to life. Lent is a time of centering, quieting, and calming; of putting the spiritual first.

But most importantly, Lent brings us to Easter. It is the long journey with Jesus through the Valley of the Shadow of Death to the Cross and the empty Tomb. From there bursts forth the Resurrection that shall one day encompass the cosmos: Easter forever.