Mystical systems
Lent
Direct answer
Lent is the Christian season of about forty days before Easter, kept with fasting, prayer and almsgiving in memory of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness.
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- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Prayer and Fasting, Wilderness, Repentance, Asceticism
Lent is the Christian season of about forty days before Easter, kept with fasting, prayer and almsgiving in memory of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness.
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What is Lent?
Lent is the season of preparation for Easter. In the Western churches it begins on Ash Wednesday and runs to the eve of Easter: forty days of fasting, since the six Sundays are not counted. Its three traditional works are prayer, fasting and giving to the poor.
How strictly it is kept varies. Catholics today are bound to fast on two days only, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and to abstain from meat on the Fridays. The Eastern Orthodox keep Great Lent with a fast from meat, dairy and eggs throughout. Many Protestants keep it by giving up one thing of their own choosing.
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What sets Lent apart
Lent is a fast with a destination. It counts down to Easter, and its mood moves with the count, from ashes on the first day to the bare altars of the last week. The number forty is borrowed several times over: forty days of Jesus in the wilderness, forty of Moses on Sinai, forty years of Israel in the desert. Western and Eastern churches reckon the days differently and seldom begin together, and the Orthodox open theirs on a Monday.
- English name: from Old English lencten, the spring season
- Latin name: Quadragesima, the fortieth
- Western start: Ash Wednesday, forty-six days before Easter Sunday
- Orthodox start: Clean Monday, opening Great Lent
- Three works: prayer, fasting and almsgiving
- Catholic rule today: fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; no meat on Fridays
Often mistaken for something else: Advent is the shorter season of preparation before Christmas and is kept more lightly; Lent is the longer one before Easter and is the church's chief season of fasting.
The story behind Lent
The Gospels describe Jesus fasting forty days in the wilderness, and a fast before Easter is attested from the second century. The Council of Nicaea in 325 refers to the forty days. The English name comes from an Old English word for spring. The day before Lent became a feast for using up rich food, Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Pope Paul VI set the present Catholic rules in 1966.
Why Lent matters
Lent is the best known season of fasting in the West and the model of a discipline with a fixed beginning and end.
How to read Lent
Christians keep it by fasting, extra prayer and charity; the word is also used loosely for any period of giving something up.
Lent in practice: an example
A reader who is not religious might still borrow the shape of Lent: forty days, one thing set down, and a date on which it ends.
Where readings of Lent go wrong
The churches excuse the sick, the old, the young and the pregnant from fasting, and no one fasts against a doctor's advice.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- lent meaning, what is lent, lenten fast, forty days of lent, when is lent
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is Lent?
It is the Christian season of about forty days before Easter, kept with fasting, prayer and almsgiving. In the West it begins on Ash Wednesday.
Why is Lent forty days?
In memory of the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness. In the Western count the Sundays are left out, so the season spans forty-six days on the calendar.
What are the rules of fasting in Lent?
For Catholics, fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday for adults from eighteen until they turn fifty-nine, and no meat on Fridays. The Orthodox fast from meat, dairy and eggs through the whole season.
