Lent
This is a period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day. The origins of Lent do not lie in any conscious re-enactment of our Lord's time in the wilderness but in our rigorous preparation for the celebration of the death and resurrection of the Lord during Holy Week and at Easter.
The observance of Lent was first undertaken by those preparing for baptism as part of the Easter liturgy, and by those who had been excommunicated for grave and public sin who, after this period of penance, would be re-admitted to the sacramental life of the Church at Easter. It was not long before the Church realized the benefit to all Christians of joining these others in a season of preparation marked by penitence expressed in prayer and fasting. It is this sense of preparation, and so of eager expectation with Good Friday and Easter Day always in view, that should characterize our Lent. Lent commences on Ash Wednesday when ashes made frown the bellying of palm crosses from the previous year are placed on the foreheads of worshipers. The season reaches its climax on Palm Sunday and holy Week. We recall, almost minute by minute, Christ's entry into Jerusalem knowing that he faced death. his last supper with his disciples, the agony in the garden, his betrayal, arrest and trial, the crucifixion and the long hours leading up to the resurrection. This Easter Mystery of Christ, his death and resurrection. is the very centre of the church's year of worship and our lives as believers. It is with Christ, who died and who now reigns gloriously, that we are made one through our sacramental life and our fellowship in the Spirit. We now live in the light and life of the Spirit of the risen Jesus.