Lent

Lent may originally have followed Epiphany but it soon became firmly attached to Easter, as the principal occasion for baptism and for the reconciliation of those who had been excluded from the Church’s fellowship for apostasy or serious faults. This history explains the characteristic tone of Lent – self-examination, penitence, self-denial, study, and preparation for Easter, to which almsgiving has traditionally been added.

As the candidates for baptism were instructed in Christian faith, and as penitents prepared themselves, through fasting and penance, to be readmitted to communion, the whole Christian community was invited to join them in the process of study and repentance.

Ashes are an ancient sign of penitence; from the middle ages it became the custom to begin Lent by being marked in ash with the sign of the cross – the imposition of ashes. In the West, the forty days of Lent are counted continuously to the end of Holy Week (not including Sundays), so beginning Lent on the sixth Wednesday before Easter, Ash Wednesday.  The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare or Refreshment Sunday) was allowed as a day of relief from the rigour of Lent, and the Feast of the Annunciation almost always falls in Lent; these breaks from austerity are the background to the modern observance of Mothering Sunday on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. On that day the focus moves from Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, to the reading of the Passion Narrative and Christ’s suffering and death.

The liturgical colour is violet/purple and Lenten Array, which is unbleached linen, may also be used. Churches are kept bare of flowers and decoration. Gloria in excelsis is not used.