What Is Lent?
By The Quiethaven Editorial Team
Lent is the forty-day season of repentance, prayer and fasting that prepares Christians for Easter. It is one of the oldest and most universal observances in the Church — practiced by Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and an increasing number of Evangelicals.
Why forty days
Forty is a thick number in Scripture: forty days of rain in the flood (Genesis 7), forty years of Israel in the wilderness, forty days of Jesus fasting before his public ministry (Matthew 4). Lent walks with Jesus into the wilderness so that we arrive at Easter with him.
When it starts
For Western churches Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Saturday. Sundays don't count toward the forty days (each Sunday is a "little Easter"). For Orthodox Christians Great Lent runs from Clean Monday to the start of Holy Week, calculated from the Eastern paschal date. Our liturgical calendar shows the right dates for your tradition.
The three traditional disciplines
- Prayer — increased prayer, often with a specific Lenten rule. A simple prayer timer helps you sit each day without rushing.
- Fasting — abstaining from certain foods (meat on Fridays is the minimum in many traditions; Orthodox observance is much stricter), or from media, alcohol, or a personal indulgence.
- Almsgiving — giving money, time or attention to those who have less.
How to begin if you've never observed Lent
Pick one practice — not three. Pray five minutes more a day. Or fast from one thing (not all things). Or give one specific gift. Tell no one you're doing it; this is between you and God.
What Lent is not
Lent is not a Christian diet, a productivity hack, or a forty-day guilt trip. The point is not what you give up; the point is that giving something up — anything — uncovers what your heart actually wants. Then you can bring that to God.
Reading for Lent
A common Lenten reading plan walks one of the Gospels — try the Gospel of Luke or John, one chapter a day. Pair with the verse of the day and a daily psalm. By Easter morning, you will know the story of the Passion the way only walking it can teach you. See the full calendar →
About the author
The Quiethaven Editorial Team — The Quiethaven editorial team writes about Bible reading, prayer and the Christian year, with theological review across Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
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