I had a discussion recently with a group of people, after a Sunday mass, and they were trying to decide how long the season of Lent is. The obvious, traditional answer is 40 days. But is that exactly right? Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, and concludes with the Mass of the Lord\u2019s Supper on Holy Thursday. So Good Friday and Holy Saturday are not part of Lent. And only part of Holy Thursday is. And what about Sundays during Lent? Several people have ventured the opinion that Sunday aren\u2019t really part of Lent, and therefore their Lenten discipline\u2014usually dietary\u2014doesn\u2019t have to be followed on Sundays.<\/p>\n
Well, not so fast. True, every Sunday has the character of Easter, as a commemoration of Christ\u2019s passion, death, and resurrection. But look in the Sacramentary, and these liturgies are called \u201cThe First Sunday of Lent,\u201d and \u201cThe Second Sunday of Lent\u201d etc. I\u2019m seeing a lot of purple vestments for days that people think aren\u2019t really part of Lent. My considered opinion is, Sundays count. So, From Ash Wednesday, to the Mass of the Lord\u2019s Supper on Holy Thursday, I get 43.5 days. If you take out six Sundays, you still don\u2019t get 40 days.<\/p>\n
40 days is a symbolic number. In the scriptures, whether it\u2019s the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, or Jesus fasting for 40 days, the point isn\u2019t the precise number of days. It\u2019s symbolic of a long time, the time of a significant and life-changing journey. That\u2019s what Lent is supposed to be. Whether it\u2019s 37 days, 40 or 43.5, the point is to make it a time of personal transformation, through prayer, fasting, and works of charity or almsgiving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a discussion recently with a group of people, after a Sunday mass, and they were trying to decide how long the season of Lent is. The obvious, traditional answer is 40 days. But is that exactly right? Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, and concludes with the Mass of the Lord\u2019s Supper on Holy Thursday. So Good Friday and Holy Saturday are not part … Continue reading How Long is Lent?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts-of-faith","tag-facts-of-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5FUlW-2Z","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}