Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter

And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58: 10-11.

What is Lent?
Lent is a 40-day liturgical season that begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes at the Great Vigil of Easter. Sundays are not included in the 40-day count because every Sunday is a joyful celebration of Jesus' resurrection. Though not biblical, Lent has long been a tradition in the Christian Church...

FAQs about Lent
Lent began as a period of preparation for baptism. In the early centuries, adults who felt drawn to the Christian church were welcomed into something like an apprenticeship during which they were mentored in Christian belief, worship, prayer, and practices. more...

Journey to the Cross
An online devotional guide for Lent. A place of personal, spiritual preparation for the coming of Easter. The devotions are written with young people in mind but are great resources for all ages. more...

A Duck for Lent
Every year I give up chocolate for Lent�it�s a no-brainer for me. But this year I decided to raise the bar a little and get to the heart of something that�s been chipping away at me for some time: Work was becoming a negative influence in my life. I�d begun allowing myself to be overcome with frustration because of various stresses...

The Music of Lent and Easter
The seasons of Lent and Easter are dramatically different and so is the music that supports the scriptures. Here are some ways to use music to enhance each of the seasons.

The Great Lent: A week by week meaning
There are institutes and symbols adopted by nations, churches or groups of men which represent certain ideals accumulated in the past. These institutes, that is precepts recognized as authoritative, and symbols represent the thoughts and feelings of those who created or adopted them and put in them all the experience of the past, often through struggle and sacrifice.

For the Youth - What's up with Lent?
It is just about midnight and you are surrounded by a quiet darkness. You look around, everyone is there; everyone always is on this night. The priest comes out of the sanctuary; he sings, "Come receive the light from the never ending light and Glorify Christ, who is risen from the dead."

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In Search of Grace chronicles Kristin Hahn's two-year journey through the smorgasbord of America's religious and spiritual communities. Like many Generation Xers, Hahn was raised in a home that wasn't affiliated with any particular religion. This didn't seem like much of a handicap until, at age 29, Hahn realized that she had become dependent on hiring people to make her feel better, whether it be acupuncturists, palm readers, or weekend seminar leaders Buy it

Down from the mountain
Does the glory of God have to be so fleeting? Can't life just be still for a moment so that we can take off our shoes and relax? No, it appears that the only thing we can count on in life is change.

Why doesn�t my church observe Lent?
Lent began in the apostolic era and was universal in the ancient church. For this reason, Lent is observed by the various Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Anglican denominations, by Roman Catholics, and by Eastern Orthodox Churches. But it is easier to explain who does not observe it and why they don�t.

Orthodox Christians Begin Great Lent February 23
Over 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, including some six million in North America, will enter the season of Great and Holy Lent on Monday, February 23. This solemn day will mark the beginning of the period of prayer and fasting that precedes the celebration of Easter (Pascha), the most sacred and holy day of the Orthodox Church.

From dust to new life
We begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday with the words, "You are dust and to dust you will return." Sobering words. Words reminding us that we are creatures, that we are not of ourselves eternal. We do not live forever, that we have been created out of the dust of the earth.
We end Lent with the celebration of Easter, with the awareness that Christ is victorious over death and that we have the possibility of being new creations, new creations in Christ. So Lent is a period when we individually and corporately ask the questions about what it means to be human, what does it mean to be a part of the body of Christ, to be baptized people. What is our potential, we creatures made of dust, what might we become? Lent is about our spiritual journey from dust to new life, from creature to new creation in Christ. more...
-- Bishop William Burrill, in a sermon preached March 26, 2000 for the Protestant Hour

Retreating into the Wilderness with Jesus
Lent is a season of soul-searching and repentance. It is a season for reflection and taking stock. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus� withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. more...
-- Ken Collins, KenCollins.com

Fasting, part 1:
Hunger for God
Fasting can be understood as an act of self-offering, of penitence, of surrender to God's sovereignty, and of preparation for renewed mission. At an even more basic level, fasting concretely reminds us of our hunger for God and brings our whole body into the experience of prayer. more...
-- Kristine A. Haig, of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

The wilderness temptation reveals truth:
moral decisions point to life and death
Several months ago three young men from the upper middle class community of Glen Ridge, New Jersey were finally sentenced after a highly publicized trial in 1993 led to their conviction of a particularly vile rape of a seventeen-year-old girl with an I.Q. of just 64, roughly the comprehension of an eight-year-old.... After conviction one of the young perpetrators managed to admit, "I used poor judgment." After the sentencing another said, "I was very young at the time" and the third convicted felon said nothing.

Poor judgment, youthful indulgence, these were the only proffered explanations. Nothing about right and wrong. Nothing about moral responsibility, or integrity, dignity, no courage to embrace a larger truth.

We live in strange days in the United States. We revel in an extravagance of individual freedom, cherishing it as the highest of values, and yet, simultaneously seem deathly allergic to a commensurate commitment to integrity and accountability. These two aspects of our culture are at great odds with one another.

I fear their imbalance predicts crisis for our culture, just the way it predicts crisis for us individually. To live without a dynamic moral core is, at best, to live a sloppy life that leaves messes everywhere one goes.... What the Christian Church claims is that we humans live in personal relationship with the creator God. This relationship has structure and meaning. It is bounded by certain inescapable principals which are woven into the fabric of our existence. The book we hold in high esteem is a reflection on and revelation of the nature of this relationship.
Reading from one vantage point, the account of Jesus in the desert concerns what is real and true at the center of all things, namely the nature of our loving and just God. That's why the stark choices that are laid out before Jesus bear the weight of moral temptation; these are not simply some ho-hum decisions, each option perfectly tolerable. These decisions concerned life and death, which, I would argue, all moral decisions ultimately point to. more...
-- A Whole Lot of Poor Judgment, a sermon preached March 1, 1998 by the Rev. Steve Bauman for the Protestant Hour

Fasting, part 2:
When, not if
Jesus told us that when we fast (not if) we are not to make a show of it, like hypocrites do. A fast is different from a hunger strike: a fast is an act of devotion to God, while a hunger strike is a power play and a way of attracting publicity. A fast is also different from anorexia nervosa: it is disciplined diet, not total abstention from food. During a religious fast, you still eat, you just abstain from certain foodstuffs. Traditionally, people have fasted by eliminating luxury items from their diets, such as meats. You could have a fast that consists of eating whatever you want, but drinking only water. Orthodox Christians recognize five levels of fasting... more...

A Lenten alternative: start a good habit
What do we allow to get between us and God? Is it "things of this world" or notoriety or power, having control? Whether we choose to deny ourselves something during Lent or whether we just seek to draw closer to our Redeemer, Counselor and Friend, this time of self-examination is a great opportunity to allow God full access to every corner of our life and to dedicate and rededicate ourselves totally to his service. Instead of giving up a bad habit, it might be more positive to turn toward something better and therefore start a good habit rather than giving up something. more...
Lita Claytor Swindle of Church Women United reflects on the meaning of Lent

Letting Go for Lent
What are you going to give up for Lent? I still remember that question being posed to me during one of my seminary years. It brought to mind memories of my younger days, when Roman Catholic friends went meatless for Lent, bringing sack lunches instead of joining the cafeteria line.

What are you going to give up for Lent? I considered the obvious choices: chocolate, junk food, caffeine. But my spiritual counselor had a different idea. Why don't you give up your calendar? she suggested. more...

My calendar?! What, was she crazy??
-- Kristine A. Haig, of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Fasting, part 3:
The official rules -- the bacon drippings are okay
According to Father John Huels in The Pastoral Companion (Franciscan Herald Press), abstinence does not include meat juices and liquid foods made from meat. Thus, such foods as chicken broth, consomm�, soups cooked or flavored with meat, meat gravies or sauces, as well as seasonings or condiments made from animal fat are not forbidden. So it is permissible to use margarine and lard.

Huels states that even bacon drippings which contain little bits of meat may be poured over lettuce as seasoning. more...
-- From Ask a Franciscan, the St. Anthony Messenger.

Another wilderness: pondering inhumanity
Lent is a most appropriate time to ponder the Christian response to humanity's inhumanity to other people. After all, Lent is a time when we remember the passion and death of our savior, Jesus Christ. It is amazing how, as Christians, we have participated in the denial of the two major massacres which have scarred the twentieth century. more...
-- The Rev. Ignacio Castuera, in a sermon preached April 9, 2000, for the Protestant Hour