Lent is the 40 day liturgical season of fasting, special prayer and almsgiving in preparation for Easter. The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and continues until Holy Thursday. 

This reflects the time Jesus spent in the Judean desert. According to the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus fasted for 40 days and forty nights and overcame direct temptations from Satan during this time.

• Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving instructions from God for 40 days (see Ex 24:18)
• Noah was on the Ark waiting for the rains to end for 40 days and 40 nights (Gn 7:4) 
• Elijah “walked 40 days and 40 nights to the mountain of God, Horeb” (1 Kgs 19:8) 
• Jesus in the desert 40 days fasting, praying and being tempted by the devil (Mt 4:1-11)
• “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” (Catechism, No. 540).

• Problem:  Sundays are not supposed to be fast days - so six Sundays were subtracted 
• Result:  Only 36 fasting days. 
• Resolution: Add the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday before the first Sunday of Lent, which led to “Ash Wednesday” as the beginning of Lent. (St. Pope Gregory I)  (r. 590-604) 

• Lent ends sundown on Holy Thursday. (The Last Supper)

• Job repented before God: “Therefore, I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). 
• Daniel “turned to the Lord God, to seek help, in prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (Dn 9:3). 
• Jonah preached conversion and repentance to the people of Nineveh: “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes” (Jon 3:6). 
• The Maccabees army prepared for battle: “That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their garments” (1 Mc 3:47).

• At first, only Catechumens when they began their preparation time for baptism. 
• Confessed sinners were marked with ashes as part of the public penitential process. 
• Other baptized Christians began asking for ashes like the in catechumens and penitents. 
• Thus ashes slowly became a common sign of penance and being ready for Easter
• In 1091AD - it became the recommended universal use on Ash Wednesday (Pope Urban II)

• We wear ashes on our foreheads like billions of Christians before us for over 1,500 years.
• When receiving the ashes, the priest makes the Sign of the Cross on each person’s forehead and says either:
  • "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return." -OR-
  • "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel."
• We acknowledge that “we are dust and to dust we shall return.”
  • When God drove Adam and Eve from Eden, He told Adam, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gn 3:19). 
• Jesus also speaks of ashes:  “Woe to you … if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes” (Mt 11:21).
• Ashes and dust remind us God used basic/common material when he created us. 
• Lent reminds us that Jesus stooped so low through the Incarnation and then offered it up to us on the cross.
• Surprising fact: Not a Holy Day of Obligation!

• Prayer: use of time
• Almsgiving: use of material resources
• Fasting: attention to our own selves and physical needs. 

WHO

• Exceptions: USCCB: physically or mentally ill, diabetic, pregnant or nursing women
• “In all cases, common sense should prevail, and ill persons should not further jeopardize their health by fasting.”

• No Snacking:  Solid foods between meals is prohibited, but liquids may be consumed at any time

• Note: Don’t be “too legal” and break the spirit of abstinence and fasting.Ex: avoiding steak but eating piles of lobster and shrimp, or milkshakes between meals

• Only two days - Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
• A one-hour fast is always required before receiving Communion.

• Ash Wednesday, the Fridays of Lent, and Good Friday. 
• All other Fridays, too
  • But in the U.S., Catholics may perform another act of penance if they choose.
  • Focus on self-denial, along with works of charity and mercy while recalling Christ’s passion.

• free ourselves from worldly distractions
• express our longing for Jesus
• imitate his suffering.
• create a hunger, a spiritual void that only Christ can fill
• express our love of God and acknowledge our sinfulness. 

• “return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.” 

• God told Adam and Eve not to eat (abstain) from the Tree of Knowledge (Gn 2:17). 
• Queen Esther (Est 4:15), in a successful attempt to save the Jews, ordered a three-day fast for herself and her court. 
• The Book of Jonah describes how the people of Nineveh fasted and were saved from God’s wrath (3:4-10).

• Jesus went into the desert and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights (Mt 4:1-11). 
• In Mark 2:18-20, Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ accusation that his disciples do not fast: “As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.” 
• Once Jesus was not with them, the Apostles did fast and advocated fasting to new Christians as evidenced in the books of Acts and the Epistles.

• Giving money to Catholic charities or some other good cause. 
• Jesus encouraged us to reach out to people in need—not just with our money—but with our time and our talents. 
• Cultivate a spirit of generosity and Communion with the Body of Christ. 
• Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

• Victorious armies or leaders returning from the battlefield or a long military campaign were welcomed by the populace jubilantly waving palm branches.
• Despite Jesus’ peaceful manner, when the Jews waved the palms at Him and spread their clothing over which He rode, they were affording Him the honors of a conquering hero and simultaneously defying the Roman occupiers.

• It begins at sundown on Holy Thursday and ends sundown on Easter Sunday

• ONE ceremony divided across three days:
  • Holy Thursday - the Last Supper according to John  - foot washing of the disciples (white vestments)
  • Good Friday - Retelling of Passion and stripping of the Church (red vestments)
  • Easter Vigil -OCIA (white vestments)
  • Easter Sunday (white vestments)

• We applaud Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem shouting out “Hosanna”, within a week, we cry, “Crucify Him.” 
  • We go from hailing Him the new King of Israel to yelling “we have no king but Caesar.”
  • We praise Him and then we mock Him.
    • “When the great crowd … heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: ‘Hosanna! / Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, [even] the king of Israel’” (John 12:12-13).
• Jesus  enters on a donkey, a sign of peace; and not just any donkey, the Jews surging around Him recalled the words of the Prophet Zechariah 500 years earlier:

• Exult greatly, O daughter Zion! / Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! / Behold: your king is coming to you; /a just savior is he, / Humble, and riding on a donkey, / on a colt, the foal of a donkey. / He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim / and the horse from Jerusalem” (Zec 9:9-10).

• But soon our joy turns to somberness as we hear the narrative of Christ’s passion. 
• We remember that His true victory will come through the cross. 
• We keep the palms we to remind us of Christ’s victory, and we too can achieve everlasting life.

• Variety of practices until standardized in 1955
  • either an organized procession that begins somewhere outside the church, 
  • a solemn procession starting inside the church, or 
  • no procession at all. 
    • A procession beginning outside the church is used only once during the weekend Masses; it is not repeated at every Mass.

• By 100AD, they established a particular day, which was connected to the Jewish Passover.
• Began at sundown on Saturday evening  - “Night of the Great Vigil” -  sang “Alleluia” at dawn on Easter morning. 
• It was during the Night of the Great Vigil that new Christians were received into the Church.

• Over time, the practice of observing Holy Week spread throughout the Christian world, with prayers, historical re-enactments and special liturgies.
• Vatican II (1962-65), restored receiving new Christians into the Church at the Easter Vigil.