Lent

Lent prepares the Church for the Paschal Triduum. It begins on Ash Wednesday and ends before the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. The number forty echoes Jesus in the desert, Israel in the wilderness, and Moses and Elijah on the mountain. The six Sundays are in Lent but are not counted among the forty fast days, because Sunday remains the day of the Resurrection.

The color is violet. The Gloria and the Alleluia fall silent. Flowers are restrained. On the Fourth Sunday, Laetare Sunday, rose vestments may be worn as a pause of joy. The scrutinies for adults preparing for baptism are celebrated on the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays when the parish is using the readings of Year A, which may be chosen every year for that reason.

The classic works of the season are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, taken from the Gospel of Ash Wednesday. In the United States, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fast and abstinence. The Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence from meat for those 14 and older. These are the laws of the Latin Church as applied in the United States. They are a minimum, not the whole of conversion.

Lent is baptismal as well as penitential. The Church walks with catechumens toward the Easter Vigil and asks the already baptized to remember their own promises. The season is not a self-improvement program. It is a return to the font and the altar.