What Is Lent? The 40 Days Before Easter — Fasting, Prayer, and Repentance Explained

Lent is the 40-day season of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving that precedes Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday (or, in some traditions, continues through Holy Saturday).

The 40-day structure is not accidental. It echoes Moses's 40 days on Sinai (Exodus 34:28), Elijah's 40-day journey to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8), and most directly, Jesus's 40-day fast in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Lent is an annual immersion in that desert experience — a season of stripping away comfort and distraction to encounter God in the lean, unadorned space.

The History

The practice of preparation before Easter existed from the early church. By the 4th century, a 40-day fast before Easter was widely established — first as preparation for new converts (catechumens) who would be baptized at Easter, then gradually adopted by the whole church as an annual season of renewal.

The word "Lent" comes from the Old English lencten — the lengthening of days in spring. It's not a theological word; it's a seasonal one.

The Three Pillars: Fasting, Prayer, Almsgiving

Catholic and Orthodox teaching has traditionally organized Lent around three disciplines, drawn from Matthew 6's teaching on religious practice:

Fasting: Abstaining from food (traditionally, the Lenten fast excluded meat on Fridays; many also fasted more strictly on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). In contemporary practice, "giving something up for Lent" reflects this fasting dimension, though it's often reduced to trivial habits (chocolate, social media) without the deeper spiritual intent.

The spiritual purpose of fasting in Lent is not willpower training. It's solidarity with Christ's wilderness experience, with the poor who go without choice, and with the reality of life lived in dependence on God rather than on comfort.

Prayer: Lent is a season of intensified prayer — returning to practices that have lapsed, deepening existing ones, and spending more time in the kind of honest, unhurried prayer that daily busyness squeezes out.

The Daily Office (morning and evening prayer) has traditionally been practiced throughout Lent. Many churches offer midweek services during Lent for additional communal prayer.

Almsgiving: Generosity to the poor is the third traditional Lenten practice. The money and time not spent on what you've fasted from should go somewhere — specifically, toward those in need. Almsgiving connects the discipline of Lent outward, preventing self-centered asceticism.

Ash Wednesday: The Beginning

Ash Wednesday — the first day of Lent — involves the imposition of ashes on the forehead in the sign of the cross, accompanied by the words: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19).

This is jarring and intentionally so. In a culture that denies mortality, spends billions on anti-aging, and treats death as a medical failure rather than a universal human destination — to have ashes pressed into your forehead and be told "you will die" is profoundly countercultural.

The ashes are traditionally made from the burned palm branches of the previous year's Palm Sunday. The palms of triumph become the ashes of mortality.

Ash Wednesday invites you to begin Lent by locating yourself truthfully: you are dust. You are finite. You are not God. From this posture of honest limitation, you pray.

What to Give Up (and What to Take On)

The tradition of "giving something up for Lent" is legitimate but often impoverished in practice.

A better frame: Give up something that occupies the space God should occupy. Not chocolate (unless chocolate is genuinely a comfort idol for you), but something that reveals your disordered attachments — social media, news consumption, recreational spending, entertainment that numbs rather than refreshes.

The question: what do I reach for when I'm anxious, bored, or hurting? What competes with God for my attention and trust? That is your Lenten discipline.

Adding practices is as important as removing them. Lent is not only about subtraction. The traditional complementary practices:

• Daily Scripture reading through the Lenten lectionary
• Regular confession (scheduled, not just spontaneous)
• Service — some concrete act of volunteering or giving that takes time, not just money
• Attending Holy Week services — the culminating events (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday) that you may normally skip
• Fasting on Fridays — even a partial fast, or no meat (the ancient practice)

Sundays in Lent

One important liturgical note: Sundays are not technically "part of" Lent — they are mini-Easters, the weekly celebration of the Resurrection. This is why the liturgical counting gives 40 "fasting days" even though the calendar from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday is longer. The 40 Lenten days exclude Sundays.

This means: if you give up something for Lent and have it on Sundays, you're not cheating. You're following the ancient practice. Sundays are always feast days in the church's calendar.

Lent and Baptism

In the early church, Lent was the final preparation period for catechumens — people who had been learning the faith and would be baptized at the Easter Vigil. This gave Lent its character of renewal and re-commitment: the whole church accompanied the catechumens in their final 40 days of preparation, re-examining their own baptismal commitments.

Many church renewal movements today recover this: Lent as an annual re-commitment to baptismal identity and vows. "Who did you promise to be at your baptism? Are you living that?"

The Spiritual Fruit of Lent

Lent is not about being miserable. It's about being honest. The disciplines of Lent strip away the comfort layers that keep you from seeing yourself clearly — your dependencies, your pride, your hunger for God beneath all the other hungers.

What the tradition reports from generations of Lenten observance: a deeper appreciation for Easter, a more honest self-knowledge, a greater tenderness toward others who struggle, and a rekindled desire for God that busyness had crowded out.

Easter is more joyful when you've been in the wilderness. The resurrection light is more blinding when you've been sitting in the dark of Lent.

That's the spiritual logic. And it's been tested by 1,700 years of Christian practice.

How to Start If You Never Have

1. Mark Ash Wednesday on your calendar. Attend a service if there's one nearby, or simply observe the day privately: read Genesis 3, confess your mortality to God, pray.

2. Choose one discipline from each pillar: one thing to fast from, one prayer practice to add, one act of concrete generosity.

3. Use a devotional. The Cost of Discipleship (Bonhoeffer), The Reason for God (Keller), or the church's standard Lenten lectionary readings all work well for Lenten reading.

4. Attend Holy Week services. At minimum: Good Friday. If possible: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and the Easter Vigil. The culminating events of the Christian year deserve presence, not just knowledge.

5. Be patient with yourself. Lent, like all disciplines, is imperfect. You'll forget your discipline. You'll slide. Don't disqualify the whole season — return to it. The return is itself formation.

Related: What Is Advent? | Good Friday Meaning