LENT |
The time of Lent is 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Eve. Sundays are not days of fasting. During the Lent you should do penance, consider your Christian life, give up of your own things to the benefit of those who are suffering from starvation and poverty.
The custom of fasting is very old. We can read that Jesus moved aside in prayer and fasting. In the earliest days of church is was a custom which needed no comments that some periods of life are assigned to fasting. Wednesdays and Fridays were special days of fasting. Gradually special parts of the year were assigned to fasting, and from the forth century we hear about the custom of fasting 40 days before Easter.
Lent is a time of penance and considering. This time those who were candidates of baptism were taught in the Christian faith. The most important day of baptism was Easter Day. The way to baptism is not a private thing. That ought to be a walk in common with the whole congregation. The faith is a gift given in the fellowship of others. In that fellowship our faith is given the nourishing and stimulation which is needed to establish and ripen.
Ash Wednesday?
Now it is time for prayer and fasting.
To make a pause and go to the bottom. To turn around and look in another direction.
Make a fresh start.
You need time and consideration. Now is the beginning of the road of the cross up to the joy of Easter.
Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning"
(Joel 2:12).
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
(Matthew 10:38)
The Holy Week is the last week before Easter, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Day. Earlier this week was a very quiet time in Sweden. That is not the fact nowadays. The meaning of celebrating Easter is forgotten among most people.
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