The Lent is one forty days period preceding Easter in the Christian Calendrier. Whereas the Easter, which commemorates and celebrates the resurrection of the Christ, is most important of the festivals of Christendom (catholic and orthodoxe), the Lent is conceived like a make-ready time to this one. According to the confessions, it starts with the Ash Wednesday or in the pure Monday and ends during the Holy Week.

The Lent is a time of Pénitence, Prière and division. Particularly, it is the ultimate make-ready time for the Baptême S of adults, traditionally celebrated the Easter Day. Penitence can be marked by the fast or the abstinence, like the voluntary abstention from meat and dairy produce, and sometimes nowadays of dessert and sugar refinery. In Europe, the Lent lost much of its ritual nature, as well as many religious events, because of the Sécularisation of the company; however, of many Christians still take account of the Lent in a more personal way. For example, of small groups of catholics meet each week around a booklet, source of reflection on their daily life (see Lent in Domicile). In other areas of the world, the Lent is marked various ways: thus, on certain islands of the the Antilles, the discotheques do not open during the Lent.

Origins and history

The name Lent comes from the contraction of the Latin word quadragesima , which means fortieth. It is naturally about a reference to the Easter Day, which finishes the Lent. Although name was somewhat lost, one called also the Lent the Lent. The forty days duration itself commemorates at the same time the forty years of wandering in the desert of the people of Israel following his escape of Egypt and the forty days of the Tentation of Christ in the desert between its baptism and the beginning of its public life, at the time which It was tried by Satan, according to the synoptic Gospels. Sundays not forming part of the Lent, the Lent actually extends over forty six days.

The practice of the Lent goes back to the first centuries of Christianity. It undoubtedly consisted in the beginning fasting during the few days which preceded Easter. Then, the duration of the Lent extended and it is during the Concile of Laodicée (348? - 381?) that was prescribed the xerophagy, i.e. the exclusive use of the bread and the dry fruits during the time which corresponded to the Lent.

In VIIe century, the Lent was established in its current calendar. At that time, the fast consisted in taking only one daily meal and abstaining from any food the days of Friday and the Easter Saturday. Moreover, three Sundays preceding the Lent - Septuagésime, Sexagésime and Quinquagésime - themselves were included in the preparation of Easter. However, the regulations of fast were slackened very quickly and, as of XIIIe century, the lunch was authorized and supplemented of a collation the evening.

With the Middle Ages, there existed two other forty days periods of fast and sexual abstinence, preceding the festival by the Holy-Cross of September and Christmas. However, it is mainly the Lent of Easter which was observed, followed by that of Christmas (also called Avent) and that of Holy-Cross. The regulation of sexual abstinence was particularly observed, so much so that one notes a reduction in the births nine months after the date of the Lent of Easter.

Since 1949, the Catholic church does not prescribe any more the fast but the Ash Wednesday and the Good Friday.

Current rites

Nowadays, the fast as such is almost completely isolated practices of the Lent, except the days of the Good Friday and Ash Wednesday. However, the tradition to eat thin - i.e. to abstain from meat and dish containing animal grease - Friday remains. More generally, the Lent is the occasion to abstain from being greedy and it returns to each one of knowing what that means for him.

Whereas the rites of the Lent tend to fall in disuse, the stress is especially laid now on the spiritual character of the Lent and the fast is more perceived like a spiritual fast.

The liturgical color is the Violet (which can be replaced by the pink fourth Sunday of Lent, said Sunday of Lætare). In certain places, the gray can be employed for the Féries of Lent (it is in particular the case in the Lyons Rite).

Each day of the Lent to a clean mass to remember it the period when, in Rome, one celebrated the mass daily, in a church each day different called " station". That of the Ash Wednesday is done in Holy-Sabine.

The Alleluia is removed with the Mass, even with the masses of the saints, and is replaced by a feature, song having a character more pénitentiel. The same feature is used during all the Lent Monday, Wednesday and Friday:

“Dominates, not secundum peccata will nostra quæ fecimus our neque secúndum iniquitátes will nostras retríbuas nobis.

V Dómine, memíneris iniquitátum nostrárum antiquárum: cito antícipent our misericórdiæ tuæ, quia páuperes facti sumus nimis.

V Adiuua our, Deus salutáris noster: and propter glóriam nóminis tui, Dómine, will líbera our: and propítius esto peccátis nostris, propter nomen tuum. ”

Ps102 feature, 10 - 78,8-9

Lord, does not treat us according to the sins which we have made, and do not return to us what our faults deserve.

V. Lord, do not remember our last faults; that your mercy warns us rather, because we became poor to the extreme.

V. (the knee is bent) Aide us, God our saver, and for the glory of your name, Seigneur, delivers, and forgives us us our sins for the cause of your name.

Shrovetide and Mid-Lent

See also: Fatty Tuesday

The few days which precede the Lent are celebrated by carnivals in certain traditions. These carnivals find their origin in pagan celebrations and are perceived like the last occasion to make beanfeast before the period of fast. They can be spread out over one period of several days, which one called Carême-Prenant, but Tuesday of Shrovetide, i.e. the Fatty Tuesday, is in general the day when the carnival beats full sound.

The Mi-Carême is celebrated Thursday of the third forty days whole week of penitence.

Outstanding days of the Lent

Western calendars

Byzantine calendar

LARGE LENT or LENT

  • pure Monday, first day of the Large Lent
  • Sunday of Orthodoxy or First Sunday of Lent
  • Sunday of saint Gregoire Palamas or of the relics or Second Sunday of Lent
  • Sunday of the Cross or Third Sunday of Lent
  • Sunday of saint Jean Climaque or Fourth Sunday of Lent
  • Saturday of the Acathiste
  • Sunday of holy Marie the Egyptian woman or Fifth Sunday of Lent
  • Friday takes care of Lazare, last day of Large Lent.

BRANCHES AND GREAT WEEK

See too

Partial source

Random links:Antigone the One-eyed one | Nicholas Marcellus Hentz | Espinosa del Camino | King off Bongo | Christian Robini

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