Lent

A talk that gave last year around this time for the CLC guys at St Mary of Sorrows that I wanted to type up since I had it scribbled down on a piece of paper.

Lent offers us 40 days to enter into the desert with Jesus to prepare ourselves for the coming of Easter. Not so much for the new clothes or the candy, but it's about focusing on the resurrection from death into life and understanding the greatness we were created for. Lent offers us the challenge to revisit our sinfulness and how that impacts our personal relationship with Christ from our end and allows us to reorient ourselves in that relationship. Jesus spent 40 days revisiting the disciples after his resurrection before they were sent forth to be missionaries for the world, so it makes since for us to spend sometime revisiting the person of Christ and refocus on how we're called to be leaven for the world. (Acts 1:3)

40 Days in the Bible

(Gen 7:12) For forty days and forty nights heavy rain poured down on the earth.
(Gen 8:6) At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark

Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days (TWICE)
(Exo 24:18) But Moses passed into the midst of the cloud as he went up on the mountain; and there he stayed for forty days and forty nights.
(Exo 34:28-29) So Moses stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights, without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.


Elijah strengthened by one angelic meal went forty days to Mount Horeb where the Lord passed by and he heard the voice of God
(1 Kings 19:8) He got up, ate and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.


Jonah warned the City of Nineveh they had 40 days to repent
(Jonah 3:4-7 and 10) Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day's walk announcing, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed," (5) when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. (6) When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. (7) Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: "Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. … (10) When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.


Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness
(Mat 4:1-2) Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. (2) He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry.

Fasting is a heavy theme associated with the 40 days throughout the bible.  As a tradition we fast on Ash Wednesday (today) and Good Friday as well as abstaining from meat on those two days and every Friday during Lent.  Other traditions that we hold to are increased Prayer, Almsgiving, and Repentance.  A few specific examples of those would be going to Confession during Lent, giving up something we like a lot (Fasting), praying for a friend or cause, praying the stations of the cross, and donating our treasure (time or money) to others as a way of giving Alms.  These traditions all come from our ancestry as it's recorded in the bible.