A little background (courtesy of wikipedia).....Lent is the period from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday.
While Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Lent is a time of preparation for Holy Week. Holy Week recalls the events preceding and during the crucifixion.
The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Lent is a season of grief that necessarily ends with a great celebration of Easter, it is known as the season of "Bright Sadness". It is a season of sorrowful reflection which is punctuated by breaks in the fast on Sundays.
Interesting trivia: As the first day of Lent, it comes the day after Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, the last day of the Carnival season. The word "Carnival" is in fact derived from Latin carne vale: "farewell, meat" in reference to the fasting portion of Lent.
Many modern Protestants consider the observation of Lent to be a choice, rather than an obligation.
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.....what a beautiful focus! For an interesting article about prayer, you might enjoy Layhands.com. I'm a pentecostal trapped in a baptist woman's body, so this might not be for you. But I enjoyed it. For a beautiful perspective on almsgiving, may I direct you to Jennie C.'s and to Jen in MS? And for the fasting? Stick around. I'm giving up....sputter....gasp.....cough.......
sugar.
You heard me. Now leave me alone.
3 comments:
WOW...
That is all I am going to say :)
Hey this is really a wonderful post...and pretty informative to...and hey since Women's Day is also coming up i'd also like you to visit my blog on Womens Day Wishes sometime and check out all that i've posted there!!!
I'll pray.
If you don't mind, I'll do it over here, behind the couch. Far, far from the wrath of The Sugarless One.
Good luck!
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