Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Loving the Unloved - Rights & Refuge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loving the Unloved - Rights & Refuge. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Love is the center of all bible readings and doctrines

 


Literal, grammatical, historical, contextual... all good approaches except one. Drop the literal reading of the bible where we read our belief sets, cultural mores, and prejudices into the bible. It misinforms and leads to bad theology.

But the last three approaches well informs the Hebraic or Greek Hellenistic beliefs of that day. Not so the literal reading of those ancient cultures.

Which means a good hermenuetic is redactive to the text per the rules (beliefs) of those ancient societal eras.

Which is also why theology is so full of interpretive meanings for different sects and denominations.

The best hermenuetic I have found is this:

"God is love regardless of what religious man thought of God in the OT and NT."

To underscore my point, the Abrahamic Covenant is the same as the New Covenant. God sacrifices Himself in order to enforce and assure His covenant with mankind through Abraham (saved by faith as response to divine act) and later at the Cross through Christ in the New Covenant.

In sum, the best hermenuetic is "Love = Jesus". Put it at the center of all bible readings and not the "bible" per se.

God's Love informs our reading, our faith, our doctrines, our judgments, our actions, our responses, and our worship. Putting any other doctrine in the center removes Love, making God something other than He is.

R.E. Slater
October 13, 2021




Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Redemptive Restoration of Civil Societies in an Age of Mistrust



 
Redemptive Restoration of Civil Societies
in an Age of Mistrust

What has the global pandemic brought to us? Firstly, if not significantly, there is a large societal breakdown in trust with each other and with institutions in general. As we continue to vaccinate it seems more and more unlikely that herd immunity can be reached due to a significant grouping of non-vaccinators. This means that a recovery back to a sense of "normalcy" most likely will be diminished for many years.

Similar to a PTSD psychiatric injury, social wellness will require rebuilding trust. For those who seek to help during this period of pronounced uncertainty one might imagine wading through wave after wave of misinformation, refusal to comply to help one another, and skepticism about the SARS-CoVid-19 vaccines themselves.

Both the good and the bad of information will require greater discernment with the distinct ability to find and develop determined sources of integrity including thosee good-willed promise keepers attempting to reconcile communities back to one another.

Personally, as a forward-looking entrepreneurial spirit, I sense this period of mistrust and unknowing can be importantly helpful in re-establishing better ontologic and epistemologic societal foundations than the ones we had relied on over the past centuries. Those which can no longer serve today's contemporary societies in the face of global knowledge, resourcing, and dialogue.



Foundationally restructuring our social mores will require:
(i) Properly expanding America's civil democracies to be persistently driven by equality and justice for all.
Other forms of structural redress might include:
(ii) Letting go of unhealthy eco-blinded industrialization, commercialism, and consumption.

(iii) Learning to work, listen, and build cooperative socio-economic partnerships across localities, regions, nations, and internationally while learning to let go of our trigger finger aimed at resource stealing, post-colonial expansionism, national sovereignty popularism, and ethnic cultural warfares.

(iv) And, on the religious side of things, to discern just how bad some Christian teachings have been when promoting fear, distrust, uncertainty (FUD), warfare, self-rights, and self-preservation. Mixing unhealthy beliefs with unhealthy politicking is just bad business for any community or nation.

That discriminatory and inhumane religious beliefs must be dropped by Christians from their Christian faith so that better religious teachings emphasizing an attitude of servanthood, personal sacrifice, service to others, and unbiased stewardship in all things such as non-profits, social aide, education, basic humanitarianism, love, peace and goodwill have much more to offer.

Yes, these present times of upheaval are the very best times to enact a better, more cohesive course for humanity and ecological restoration of the earth. Call it solidarity with one another, social justice, a healthy revisioning of humanity's future. Whatever. But deem this time and all our present efforts as a form of deeply personal and societal uplift. As forms of redemptive restoration of the human spirit re-learning to walk softly with our fellow neighbors throughout the cosmo-spheres of our existential and phenomenological existence.

R.E. Slater
April 13, 2021
* * * * * * * * *


Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by AntonioGuillem/iStock/Getty Images Plus,Prostock-Studio/iStock/Getty Images Plus and Thinkstock.




Workers are really, really not ready for
offices to reopen.

by Alison GreenAPRIL 12, 2021

“I Do Not Trust People in the Same Way and I Don’t Think I Ever Will Again”


Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Report, she spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better.

As COVID-19 vaccinations continue to run ahead of schedule, many workplaces that went fully remote last year are starting to set timelines for bringing people back to the office—and their employees are not happy.

As reopening initiatives gather steam, I’ve been flooded with letters from people viewing these plans with deep suspicion. Many of them are wondering whether they should even tell their employers once they’re vaccinated, since they fear that knowledge will be used to compel their return to work.

This person and her co-workers got vaccinated back in January but still fears returning:

My grandboss mentioned us going back a few weeks ago and I could almost immediately feel my panic response. I realized I haven’t been around anyone for more than two hours at a time in a year (except for three short occasions), I’m dreading having to wear a mask for multiple hours at work, I’m nervous to be back in spaces with lots of other people (even though I know our spaces are immaculately clean, we’ve still had a few positive cases). I don’t feel like me being there will do any good vs keeping my germs at home and away from people who are immunocompromised. It’s all so fraught and anxiety-inducing.

But bringing people back once they’re vaccinated has been the plan all along, as this manager points out:

I have felt like I am the one taking crazy pills the way some of our staff has reacted to my three-month warning that we will be reopening the office at the start of June. I am impressed we have held it together this long, but it has been a LOT of work and we just can’t afford to keep paying fees for missing things and losing time for development/training.

Part of the problem is one of timing. It’s one thing to plan on reopening in the late summer—Labor Day has been a popular target—but employers talking about bringing everyone back in May or June are ignoring that it’s unlikely we’ll have reached herd immunity by then (and kids definitely won’t be vaccinated yet, which is a concern for many parents).

Workers have also seen over the past year that even when employers claim they’ll implement safety measures, the reality is often very different. Social distancing requirements often go unenforced, and many people report colleagues going unmasked without any consequences. So employees are primed to be incredulous.

Plus, some people just prefer working from home and would rather not give it up. They’re quite happy to have no commute, a more flexible schedule, pets lounging nearby, more casual dress, and easy access to their own kitchen. A lot of us have even found we’re more productive at home, without the interruptions of chatty colleagues.

But the real problem, I suspect, is that in the past year, we’ve experienced a massive loss of trust in our institutions and in one another. After watching the government mislead and fail us on such a massive scale, with hundreds of thousands of people dying as a result of those failures, of course people are skeptical now. We’ve spent the past year not being protected by the institutions that were supposed to protect us and learning that we’d have to protect ourselves. So even at companies that have acted responsibly throughout the pandemic, employees are naturally anxious. When you’ve spent months watching businesses reopen while case numbers rose and governors giving that their blessing, as unsurprising new waves of infections followed, it’s pretty understandable to feel apprehensive of any new timelines for a return to “normalcy.”

This person who wrote me speaks for a lot of others:
I do not trust people or institutions in the same way and I don’t think I ever will again. Even as we “go back to normal” (and since much of the world is not vaccinated, it is not even close to over yet) I will not forget how our societies treated vulnerable people and essential workers as expendable, minorities as scapegoats, facts and public health as suggestions or lies.
The world, frankly, just feels different now:
Even when things are as safe as possible, there’s a sense that we’ve been torn apart.
Maybe I was naive, but I always assumed in a crisis, we’d come together as a society and have each other’s back. It’s been over a year of being proven wrong about that over and over again. Knowing that the people I serve at work and the ones I run into in my life may or may not be willing to throw me overboard for their own personal benefit and comfort makes it hard to be around people.
I feel differently about how I view the world and how much I want to interact with it. And I need to work on that, but I think the impact of this will linger.

All of this is true despite the very good news around us—like the rapidly increasing vaccine supply and new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing vaccinated people are unlikely to carry or spread the virus to others. For many people, that doesn’t change the reality that the past year has been a trauma, one that’s still unfolding. You can’t just turn that off when your office says it’s time to come back. (I also want to acknowledge the millions of people who won’t be “returning” to work because they’ve been working on site all along or have lost jobs that might not be coming back. In some ways, this anxiety about returning is the province of the privileged.)

So what can employers do? First and foremost, when possible, plan your reopening for further out than May or June. Think late summer or early fall. Give people plenty of notice, so they have time to get used to the idea, line up child care, and make any other arrangements. And consider a phased-in return: Rather than expecting workers to resume full-time on-site work overnight, bring people back for one or two days a week at first and then gradually increase that if it’s necessary. (It may not be! Many people have concluded that their jobs could be done most effectively with a hybrid setup, working from home some days and in the office others.) This person describes a system that worked well for her employer:

My facility has been closed to the public for basically a year. We did WFH for a while, then a mostly-WFH hybrid for the whole workforce, and then back into the still-closed-to-the-public office since the new year. We are just now opening up for limited programming, which I’ve had some surprising anxieties about even though I just got my second shot. Being able to ease back into things, and having things like mask guidelines, plexi barriers, and sanitizers everywhere has helped.

Coming back online a little bit at a time has allowed people to readjust. And it has given people with health concerns the flexibility to continue working from home, while letting those of us who feel able take care of the physical stuff that has to get done. I can’t imagine doing a year (or months) of WFH then returning to what is basically my pre-pandemic normal, just with masks on. If there is any way to make this a gentle transition, I think that would be the right call for everyone.

But employers should also recognize the significant break in trust between individuals and institutions, and know that won’t be repaired overnight. That doesn’t mean employers can’t bring people back when it’s truly safe to do so, but there’s going to be anxiety in their ranks for a long time—and the more they can be sensitive to and patient with that, the better reopenings are likely to go.





Sunday, April 11, 2021

R.E. Slater - The Birth & Death of God

 


The Birth & Death of God

by R.E. Slater


"They spoke death to me during the day.
They spoke death to me in the night.
God spare me the Great Corruption.
Let me speak life and light."- res


"God is love," I said,

But God must condemn!

"God is love," I said,

But God must hate!

"God is love," I said,

But God must kill!

"God is love," I said,

But there must be justice!

"Then God must be dead,

And we have killed Him."


             . . .



Be careful how you birth

God to the world;

What you birth may bring

Beauty or destruction,

Salvation or death.

Let God love and be love,

All other loves are death.


R.E. Slater
April 11, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
 
Notice what the “death of God” means in the chiasm: God dies unless we come to God’s aid and let God be God in our lives. What has been traditionally called death of God theology is a headline grabber but it is a misleading misnomer—it should have been called the birth of God…
That is why I never speak of the death of God but of the birth of God or the desire for God... God is what God does, and what God does is what is done in the name of God, which is the birth of God in the world.
- Jack Caputo (Biography; Books) 






Friday, April 9, 2021

The Politics of Love in an Age of Qanon


Why So Many QAnon Believers Are Evangelical Christians
April 5, 2021



The Politics of Love in an Age of Qanon

by R.E. Slater

The Qanonny mess hasn't left the evangelical church. Listening to Fox News 14 hours a day vs. the local church pastor speaking for 1 hour a week doesn't begin to compensate for the disinformation Fox is broadcasting into the ears of the willing believer. Which is a shame because many good pastors have attempted to re-right Christian messaging but cannot succeed given the daily orations of lies and propaganda by rightwing media.

  

I grew up inside of Christian fundamentalism familiar with the Scottish theologian John Darby's bible hermeneutic, Dispensationalism. Had read about all America's past reformational movements over the years. And understood how this socio-religious form of church history would later captivate church audiences under the Billy Graham era and become popularised in books like Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth," and Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind Series."


In my university years I had joined Campus Crusade for a few years. Here to was another evangelical organization preaching "End Times" watch-and-wait jargon. The better chapters, like my own campus group, wrapped it in God's Love. But even the Evangelical Christian church which I began going to had matriculated from Johnathan Edward's phrase "sinner's in the hands of an angry God" to John Piper's "the end of the world has come and all is doomed" phraseology.




Which, at this point, left me needing a newer Christian message made all-the-more-true based upon the love of God - and against all the wrongheaded teachings of an angry God waiting to wipe us out. I also needed a bible and a Christian gospel pointing to loving one another by reclaiming this earth and human society by active socio-economic messaging of healing, equality, and justice. Where God's love could be visualized through new human relationships with one another.


Another Christian message I longed to hear was to lean into this world to redeem it in some fashion rather than to wait outside of it, hating it, fearing it, and praying for its destruction by God's end times judgment. Nietzsche in many ways had it right when saying "We have killed God." Whenever we chose to hate (or do nothing) rather than to love one another by our words and deeds, God is made dead to those needing God's love.

Bad preachers and bad politicians have picked up on this alt-message of the church using the Lord's congregations shamelessly for their own ends as well as to the end of a civil American democracy. They are false preachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, and anti-christs all. And they are to be removed from our hearts and ears by simply turning of  their unloving, unChristian libel.

So let bad evangelicalism die... and with it the church's errant theologies speaking doom and judgment rather than love and beauty. The church must be at the vanguard of expressing an open and expanding democracy to its fullest. By embracing the love of God in all that it can mean to a society. By driving forward in embracing ecological civilizations centered in social and environmental justice.

This actions are necessary now. We cannot wait around for the Lord's coming to do what is right. God has already come in Christ... what more needs to be done but to take God's atoning redemption and apply it right quick into the lives of men and women??

These, among other humanitarian movements, are much better end-time theologies to be believed and promoted and wrapped around the love of God. And why? Because the church has reoriented its beliefs and preachings around the love of God rather than the doom of God.


Moreover, as a more proper evangelical gospel emphasizing God's love over doom we may now speak into the meaning and purpose of individual lives. Why one might get out of bed everyday and have a purpose to make the world a better place against all the awfulness it seems to dwell upon.

Love is a patient, powerful force. How do I know? Because of God's portrayal of Himself in Jesus on this earth as God served and taught. And because of the loving sacrifice of God's Self upon the Cross of Calvary. His one real opponent other than sin and the devil were religious people with religious beliefs obscuring God's love by religious codes, rites, and dictum. I'm afraid today's Christian Church has been doing the same - to which Jesus was none too kind when speaking to the religious leaders and beliefs of His day.

The judgment of God is that we have taken His love and buried it in the ground rather than to internalize it and broadcast it out as a farmer would his purchased seed in order to raise new crops.

The Christian church is thereby judged for its ill-usage of the gospel of God. NOT the world for which God came to serve and to save.

God loves in all ways... think on these things and foreswear the duplicity of any politician or preacher not working for the good of humanity. Even as God is loving the world through His Holy Spirit and is working ever-and-always to redeem the world in everyway possible.

Peace, my friends,

R.E. Slater
April 9, 2021

1 John 3 (the literal bible)

1See what love the Father has given to us, that we may be called children of God; because of this the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2Beloved, now, we are children of God, and it was not yet revealed what we will be. We have known that if He may have appeared, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is; 3and everyone who is having this hope on Him, purifies himself, even as He is pure.

4Everyone who is doing sin, he also does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness, 5and you have known that He appeared that He may take away our sins, and sin is not in Him; 6everyone who is remaining in Him does not sin; everyone who is sinning, has not seen Him, nor known Him. 7Little children, let no one lead you astray; he who is doing righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous, 8he who is doing sin, he is of the Devil, because the Devil sins from the beginning; for this [reason] the Son of God appeared, that He may undo the works of the Devil; 9everyone who has been begotten of God, he does not sin, because His seed remains in him, and he is not able to sin, because he has been begotten of God. 10In this are revealed the children of God, and the children of the Devil; everyone who is not doing righteousness, is not of God, and he who is not loving his brother,

11because this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we may love one another, 12not as Cain—he was of the evil one, and he slew his brother. And for [what] reason did he slay him? Because his works were evil, and those of his brother [were] righteous.

13Do not wonder, my brothers, if the world hates you; 14we have known that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers; he who is not loving [his] brother remains in death. 15Everyone who is hating his brother is a manslayer, and you have known that no manslayer has continuous life remaining in him; 16in this we have known love, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down [our] lives for the brothers; 17and whoever may have the goods of the world, and may view his brother having need, and may shut up his yearnings from him—how does the love of God remain in him? 18My little children, may we not love in word nor in tongue, but in work and in truth! 19And in this we know that we are of the truth, and before Him we will assure our hearts, 20because if our heart may condemn—because greater is God than our heart, and He knows all things. 21Beloved, if our heart may not condemn us, we have boldness toward God, 22and whatever we may ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commands, and we do the things pleasing before Him,

23and this is His command, that we may believe in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and may love one another, even as He gave command to us, 24and he who is keeping His commands, remains in Him, and He in him; and in this we know that He remains in us, from the Spirit that He gave us.





Sunday, February 7, 2021

What To Do About Lent? Part 2/2











Introduction

Fat Tuesday has come and gone. Mardi Gras is done. Celebrations to fun, food, drink, and more are over. Saints and Sinners have had their day. Now comes 40 days of Lent.

Yes, the bipolarity does not make sense. It's not consistent. Why not be one way or the other? For some reason it can't be. It's how people have dramatized the Christian Church's teachings on Christ's mortal life and coming death.

But if I had to choose I'm the more concerned by Christians celebrating Lent. With Fat Tuesday many are not hiding who they are but with Lent, 40 days of contrition seems contrived, silly, and unequal to the tasks assigned to it by the Church.

As a Pauline Apostle kind-of-guy let me suggest a few things about Lent, bypassing Mardi Gras altogether, and see what you think. I neither wish to err to the side of gluttony and hedonism nor to the side of legalism and asceticism.

I do wish we would be ourselves in all things - free of guilty and sin, and just as free of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. The season of Lent is starts  today so I thought I should share what began this Christian tradition.

In Part One, I asked the question why observe Lent if it just ends up being another religious event having no meaning in our lives? Here, in Part Two, I'd like to go at it in another way.

How Did Lent Begin and Why?

Lent marks the time of Jesus' preparation for His unjust trial, crucifixion and murder upon a Roman cross of agony and ignominy at the hands of unrepentant, proud religious leaders. In preparation for His brutish, unjust death Jesus was led of God into the wilderness for 40 days where he was tried by the devil, by the lusts of the flesh, and desires of the world. Jesus' wilderness experience marked his final preparation for leaving His earthly ministries.

Ministries marked by mercy, grace, healing, and forgiveness, all but forgotten by the gatekeepers of Judaism's faith traditions. These were the religious priests, teachers, and leaders of what was left of Judaism's old cultural beliefs and rotting temple system. These same religious leaders were by now corrupt, darken in understanding, unjust, blind to God, and stiff necked to God's Spirit.

Israel's spiritual poverty lay at the hands of her unfaithful ministers of God. Ministers who bore ingracious hearts. Hearts likened by Jesus as wide open sepulchers of religious legalism and hypocrisy. These traditionalists of the Jewish faith were concerned for their religious laws but ironically, wholly unfamiliar with God's grace, having forgotten why the Hebraic faith started in the first place.

These were false teachers of the law whom Jesus judged and condemned unworthy of God, unloving in their religious duties, and foully lusting for money, privilege and power. By calling out their sins and evil, Jesus consequently died by their "ceremonially washed" hands, marking them as "hypocrites to the end." A blasphemy of the highest order against the Spirit of God. And though we understand Jesus' sacrifice as God's own atoning death for self-righteous mankind awash in its own sin and evil, it was also at this time Jewish followers of Jesus began a new fellowship known as Christ-followers we now know as the Church of the living God.

A Church In Crisis

The Church is an organic institution birthed in the blood of Christ which is as conflicted today as it ever has been. Led by its own blind and unjust leaders who by their very words and deeds deny their God of Love and Salvation. And the sad truth is, the congregations of the church have allowed themselves to listen to these false Christian teachers by supporting them every step of the way.

So my question, "What To Do About Lent?" Should it be observed so as to heap greater indignity upon the Lord God of Grace and Mercy? Of Forgiveness and Truth? By heaping sin upon sin till it fills the nostrils of the Lord with the unholy putridness of rotting flesh and faith?

Or, do we observe Lent as a holy practice and demonstration of Godly love to one another rather than the hypocritical practices of self denial by which it has become? Just reread the pictures above... "fasting, self-denial, prayer etc.... I submit, Christianity means nothing if it cannot act humanely and with love to humanity through its various forms of social justice and ecological repair.

For it is we, as followers of Christ, who are to be the first to practice love unto others by preparing ourselves to serve and heal humanity beyond our border walls of churchliness or saintliness. The folly of holy diets, abstinence, and other works of the flesh, are not what Lent is about... though many think it is. Rather, Lent is about committing body and soul to serve God by serving others in selfless sacrifices of goodness, love, and forgiveness. Lent is not me-ward, it is others-ward.

The Practices of Lent

By practicing the "Lental" graces of love even as Christ loved and served the sinner - which by this statement is meant both the holy and the unholy sinners of this world - we are showing to God that His wilderness preparation for atoning death was not for naught. By learning to love one's fellow man in truth and by practice will honor the God of love and forgiveness who will be pleased by our actions.

However, following the typical self-ward deeds and teachings of unholy religions and religious rites of the flesh, as is found in Lent or Easter, is not pleasing to God. Christianity was "built" by God for others-service, not self-service, and especially not for silly hypocrisies proclaiming one's worthiness to God by self-denial of foods and candy while the heart remains as black and unpenitant as before.

We have by our actions turned holy communions with the Lord of man and earth into unholy festivals of self-righteousness and religious vanities. It's what Israel's religious leaders had become and now, the Christian church has found itself living out the same error. A church which deigns to rebuke Jesus and re-crucify her Lord all over again.

My friends, be done with these follies of the flesh. Repent and love. Repent and serve. Repent and be humbled by the Spirit who rids pride and flesh of its many spiritual cankers and cancers. This is the true message of Lent.





Lent

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The liturgical colour of the season of Lent is purple. Many altar crosses and religious statuary are traditionally veiled during this period in the Christian year.

Lent (LatinQuadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, doing penancemortifying the fleshrepentance of sins, almsgiving, and self-denial. This event is observed in the AnglicanEastern OrthodoxLutheranMethodistMoravianPresbyterianOriental OrthodoxReformed, and Roman Catholic Churches.[1][2][3] Some Anabaptist and evangelical churches also observe the Lenten season.[4][5]

The last week of Lent is Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday. Following the New Testament story, Jesus' crucifixion is commemorated on Good Friday, and at the beginning of the next week the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday recalls the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Lent, many Christians commit to fasting, as well as giving up certain luxuries in order to replicate the account of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ's journey into the desert for 40 days;[6][7][8] this is known as one's Lenten sacrifice.[9] Many Christians also add a Lenten spiritual discipline, such as reading a daily devotional or praying through a Lenten calendar, to draw themselves near to God.[10][11] The Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christ's carrying the Cross and of his execution, are often observed. Many Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches remove flowers from their altars, while crucifixes, religious statues, and other elaborate religious symbols are often veiled in violet fabrics in solemn observance of the event. Throughout Christendom, some adherents mark the season with the traditional abstention from the consumption of meat, most notably among Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Anglicans.[12][13][14]

Lent is traditionally described as lasting for 40 days, in commemoration of the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert, according to the Gospels of MatthewMark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry, during which he endured temptation by Satan.[15][16] Depending on the Christian denomination and local custom, Lent ends either on the evening of Maundy Thursday,[17] or at sundown on Holy Saturday, when the Easter Vigil is celebrated.[18] Regardless, Lenten practices are properly maintained until the evening of Holy Saturday.[19]

Etymology

Lent celebrants carrying out a street procession during Holy Week, in Granada, Nicaragua. The violet color is often associated with penance and detachment. Similar Christian penitential practice is seen in other Christian countries, sometimes associated with fasting.[20]

The English word Lent is a shortened form of the Old English word lencten, meaning "spring season", as its Dutch language cognate lente (Old Dutch lentin)[21] still does today. A dated term in GermanLenz (Old High German lenzo), is also related. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'the shorter form (? Old Germanic type *laŋgito- , *laŋgiton-) seems to be a derivative of *laŋgo- long ... and may possibly have reference to the lengthening of the days as characterizing the season of spring'. The origin of the -en element is less clear: it may simply be a suffix, or lencten may originally have been a compound of *laŋgo- 'long' and an otherwise little-attested word *-tino, meaning 'day'.[22]

In languages spoken where Christianity was earlier established, such as Greek and Latin, the term signifies the period dating from the 40th day before Easter. In modern Greek the term is Σαρακοστή (Sarakostí), derived from the earlier Τεσσαρακοστή (Tessarakostí), meaning "fortieth". The corresponding word in Latinquadragesima ("fortieth"), is the origin of the terms used in Latin-derived languages and in some others. Examples in the Romance language group are: Catalan quaresmaFrench carêmeGalician coresmaItalian quaresimaOccitan quaresmaPortuguese quaresmaRomanian păresimiSardinian caresimaSpanish cuaresma, and Walloon cwareme. Examples in non-Latin-based languages are: Albanian kreshmaBasque garizumaCroatian korizmaIrish carghasSwahili kwaresimaTagalog kuwaresma, and Welsh c(a)rawys.

In other languages, the name used refers to the activity associated with the season. Thus it is called "fasting period" in Czech (postní doba), German (Fastenzeit), and Norwegian (fasten/fastetid), and it is called "great fast" in Arabic (الصوم الكبير – al-ṣawm al-kabīr, literally, "the Great Fast"), Polish (wielki post), Russian (великий пост – vieliki post), and Ukrainian (великий піст – velyky pist). Romanian, apart from a version based on the Latin term referring to the 40 days (see above), also has a "great fast" version: postul mareDutch has three options, one of which means fasting period, and the other two referring to the 40-day period indicated in the Latin term: vastentijdveertigdagentijd and quadragesima, respectively.

Origin

Despite the existence of many fasting traditions before spring festivals, such as Easter, the origin of Lent is not certain. There are three prevailing theories: One, that it was created at the Council of Nicea in 325 and there is no earlier incarnation. Two, that it is based on an Egyptian post-theophany fast. Three, a combination of origins syncretized around the Council of Nicea.[23]

Various Christian denominations calculate the 40 days of Lent differently. The way they observe Lent also differs.
Some named days and day ranges around Lent and Easter in Western Christianity, with the fasting days of Lent numbered

Roman Catholicism

In the Roman Rite since 1970, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday Evening (before the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper). This comprises a period of 44 days. The Lenten fast excludes Sundays and continues through Good Friday and Holy Saturday, totalling 40 days.[24][25]

In the Ambrosian Rite, Lent begins on the Sunday that follows what is celebrated as Ash Wednesday in the rest of the Latin Catholic Church, and ends as in the Roman Rite, thus being of 40 days, counting the Sundays but not Holy Thursday. The day for beginning the Lenten fast is the following Monday, the first weekday in Lent. The special Ash Wednesday fast is transferred to the first Friday of the Ambrosian Lent. Until this rite was revised by Saint Charles Borromeo the liturgy of the First Sunday of Lent was festive, celebrated in white vestments with chanting of the Gloria in Excelsis and Alleluia, in line with the recommendation in Matthew 6:16, "When you fast, do not look gloomy".[26][27][28]

During Lent, the Church discourages marriages, but couples may do so if they forgo the special blessings of the Nuptial Mass and reduced social celebrations.[29]

The period of Lent observed in the Eastern Catholic Churches corresponds to that in other churches of Eastern Christianity that have similar traditions.

Protestantism and Western Orthodoxy

In Protestant and Western Orthodox Churches, the season of Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday to the evening of Holy Saturday.[19][30] This calculation makes Lent last 46 days if the 6 Sundays are included, but only 40 days if they are excluded.[31] This definition is still that of the Anglican Church,[32] Lutheran Church,[33] Methodist Church,[18] and Western Rite Orthodox Church.[34]

Eastern Orthodoxy and Byzantine Rite

In the Byzantine Rite, i.e., the Eastern Orthodox Great Lent (Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, meaning "Great 40 Days" and "Great Fast" respectively) is the most important fasting season in the church year.[35]

The 40 days of Great Lent includes Sundays, and begins on Clean Monday and are immediately followed by what are considered distinct periods of fasting, Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, which in turn are followed straightway by Holy Week. Great Lent is broken only after the Paschal (Easter) Divine Liturgy.

The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains the traditional Church's teaching on fasting. The rules for lenten fasting are the monastic rules. Fasting in the Orthodox Church is more than simply abstaining from certain foods. During the Great Lent Orthodox Faithful intensify their prayers and spiritual exercises, go to church services more often, study the Scriptures and the works of the Church Fathers in depth, limit their entertainment and spendings and focus on charity and good works.

Oriental Orthodoxy

Among the Oriental Orthodox, there are various local traditions regarding Lent. Those using the Alexandrian Ritei.e., the Coptic OrthodoxCoptic CatholicEthiopian OrthodoxEthiopian CatholicEritrean Orthodox, and Eritrean Catholic Churches, observe eight weeks of Lent.

In Ethiopian Orthodoxy, fasting (tsome) lasts for 55 continuous days before Easter (Fasika), although the fast is divided into three separate periods: Tsome Hirkal, eight days commemorating an early Christian figure; Tsome Arba, 40 days of Lent; and Tsome Himamat, seven days commemorating Holy Week.[36][37][38] Fasting involves abstention from animal products (meat, dairy, and eggs), and refraining from eating or drinking before 3:00 pm.[36] Ethiopian devotees may also abstain from sexual activity and the consumption of alcohol.[36]

As in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the date of Easter is reckoned according to the Julian Calendar, and usually occurs later than Easter according to Gregorian Calendar used by Catholic and Protestant Churches.

Other related fasting periods

The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, most notably by the public imposition of ashes. In this photograph, a woman receives a cross of ashes on Ash Wednesday outside an Anglican church.
A Lutheran pastor distributes ashes during the Divine Service on Ash Wednesday.

The number 40 has many Biblical references:

  • Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God (Exodus 24:18)
  • Elijah spent 40 days and nights walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8)
  • God sent 40 days and nights of rain in the great flood of Noah (Genesis 7:4)
  • The Hebrew people wandered 40 years in the desert while traveling to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:33)
  • Jonah's prophecy of judgment gave 40 days to the city of Nineveh in which to repent or be destroyed (Jonah 3:4).
  • Jesus retreated into the wilderness, where He fasted for 40 days, and was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1–2Mark 1:12–13Luke 4:1–2). He overcame all three of Satan's temptations by citing scripture to the devil, at which point the devil left him, angels ministered to Jesus, and He began His ministry. Jesus further said that His disciples should fast "when the bridegroom shall be taken from them" (Matthew 9:15), a reference to his Passion.
  • Since, presumably, the Apostles fasted as they mourned the death of Jesus, Christians have traditionally fasted during the annual commemoration of his burial.
  • It is the traditional belief that Jesus lay for 40 hours in the tomb,[27] which led to the 40 hours of total fasting that preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church[39] (the biblical reference to 'three days in the tomb' is understood by them as spanning three days, from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, rather than three 24-hour periods of time). Some Christian denominations, such as The Way International and Logos Apostolic Church of God,[40] as well as Anglican scholar E. W. Bullinger in The Companion Bible, believe Christ was in the grave for a total of 72 hours, reflecting the type of Jonah in the belly of the whale.[41]

One of the most important ceremonies at Easter is the baptism of the initiates on Easter Eve. The fast was initially undertaken by the catechumens to prepare them for the reception of this sacrament. Later, the period of fasting from Good Friday until Easter Day was extended to six days, to correspond with the six weeks of training necessary to give the final instruction to those converts who were to be baptized.[citation needed]

Converts to Christianity followed a strict catechumenate or period of instruction and discipline prior to receiving the sacrament of baptism, sometimes lasting up to three years.[42] In Jerusalem near the close of the fourth century, classes were held throughout Lent for three hours each day. With the legalization of Christianity (by the Edict of Milan) and its later imposition as the state religion of the Roman Empire, its character was endangered by the great influx of new members. In response, the Lenten fast and practices of self-renunciation were required annually of all Christians, both to show solidarity with the catechumens, and for their own spiritual benefit.[citation needed]

Associated customs

Statues and icons veiled in violet shrouds for Passiontide in St Pancras Church, Ipswich, England

There are traditionally 40 days in Lent; these are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbours).

However, in modern times, observers give up partaking in vices and often invest the time or money saved in charitable purposes or organizations.[43]

In addition, some believers add a regular spiritual discipline, to bring them closer to God, such as reading a Lenten daily devotional.[10] Another practice commonly added is the singing of the Stabat Mater hymn in designated groups. Among Filipino Catholics, the recitation of the epic of Christ' passion, called Pasiong Mahal, is also observed. In some Christian countries, grand religious processions and cultural customs are observed, and the faithful attempt to visit seven churches during Holy Week to pray the Stations of the Cross and pray at each church's Altar of Repose.[citation needed]

In many liturgical Christian denominationsGood FridayHoly Saturday, and Easter Sunday form the Easter Triduum.[44] Lent is a season of grief that necessarily ends with a great celebration of Easter. Thus, it is known in Eastern Orthodox circles as the season of "Bright Sadness". It is a season of sorrowful reflection which is punctuated by breaks in the fast on Sundays.[citation needed]

In cultivation of vegetables in a temperate oceanic climate in the northern hemisphere, Lent corresponds partly with the hungry gap.

Omission of Gloria and Alleluia

The Gloria in excelsis Deo, which is usually said or sung on Sundays at Mass (or Communion) of the Roman and Anglican rites, is omitted on the Sundays of Lent, but continues in use on solemnities and feasts and on special celebrations of a more solemn kind.[45] Some mass compositions were written especially for Lent, such as Michael Haydn's Missa tempore Quadragesimae, without Gloria, in D minor, and for modest forces, only choir and organ. The Gloria is used on Maundy Thursday, to the accompaniment of bells, which then fall silent until the Gloria in excelsis of the Easter Vigil.[46]

The Lutheran Divine Service, the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Churches, and the Presbyterian service of worship associate the Alleluia with joy and omit it entirely throughout Lent,[47][48] not only at Mass but also in the canonical hours and outside the liturgy. The word "Alleluia" at the beginning and end of the Acclamation Before the Gospel at Mass is replaced by another phrase.

Before 1970, the omission began with Septuagesima, and the whole Acclamation was omitted and was replaced by a Tract; and in the Liturgy of the Hours the word "Alleluia", normally added to the Gloria Patri at the beginning of each Hour – now simply omitted during Lent – was replaced by the phrase Laus tibi, Domine, rex aeternae gloriae (Praise to you, O Lord, king of eternal glory).

Until the Ambrosian Rite was revised by Saint Charles Borromeo the liturgy of the First Sunday of Lent was festive, celebrated with chanting of the Gloria and Alleluia, in line with the recommendation in Matthew 6:16, "When you fast, do not look gloomy".[26][27][28]

In the Byzantine Rite, the Gloria (Great Doxology) continues to be used in its normal place in the Matins service, and the Alleluia appears all the more frequently, replacing "God is the Lord" at Matins.

Veiling of religious images

A United Methodist minister prostrates at the start of the Good Friday liturgy at Holy Family Church, in accordance with the rubrics in the Book of Worship. The processional cross is veiled in black, the liturgical colour associated with Good Friday in Methodist Churches.
crucifix on the high altar is veiled for Lent. Saint Martin's parish, Württemberg, Germany

In certain pious Christian states, in which liturgical forms of Christianity predominate, religious objects were traditionally veiled for the entire 40 days of Lent. Though perhaps uncommon in the United States of America, this pious practice is consistently observed in Goa, Malta, Peru, the Philippines (the latter only for the entire duration of Holy Week, with the exception of processional images), and in the Spanish cities: BarcelonaMálaga, and Seville. In Ireland, before Vatican II, when impoverished rural Catholic convents and parishes could not afford purple fabrics, they resorted to either removing the statues altogether or, if too heavy or bothersome, turned the statues to face the wall. As is popular custom, the 14 Stations of the Cross plaques on the walls are not veiled.

Crosses were often adorned with jewels and gemstones, the form referred to as Crux Gemmata. To keep the faithful from adoring the crucifixes elaborated with ornamentation, veiling it in royal purple fabrics came into place. The violet colour later evolved as a color of penance and mourning.

Further liturgical changes in modernity reduced such observances to the last week of Passiontide. In parishes that could afford only small quantities of violet fabrics, only the heads of the statues were veiled. If no violet fabrics could be afforded at all, then the religious statues and images were turned around facing the wall. Flowers were always removed as a sign of solemn mourning.

In the pre-1992 Methodist liturgy and pre-1970 forms of the Roman Rite, the last two weeks of Lent are known as Passiontide, a period beginning on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, which in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal is called the First Sunday in Passiontide and in earlier editions Passion Sunday. All statues (and in England paintings as well) in the church were traditionally veiled in violet. This was seen as in keeping with the Gospel of that Sunday (John 8:46–59), in which Jesus "hid himself" from the people.

Within many churches in the United States of America, after the Second Vatican Council, the need to veil statues or crosses became increasingly irrelevant and was deemed unnecessary by some diocesan bishops. As a result, the veils were removed at the singing of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo during the Easter Vigil. In 1970, the name "Passiontide" was dropped, although the last two weeks are markedly different from the rest of the season, and continuance of the tradition of veiling images is left to the discretion of a country's conference of bishops or even to individual parishes as pastors may wish.

On Good Friday, the Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist churches traditionally veiled "all pictures, statutes, and the cross are covered in mourning black", while "the chancel and altar coverings are replaced with black, and altar candles are extinguished". The fabrics are then "replaced with white on sunrise on Easter Sunday".[49]

Pre-Lenten festivals

The carnival celebrations which in many cultures traditionally precede Lent are seen as a last opportunity for excess before Lent begins. Some of the most famous are the Carnival of Barranquilla, the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Carnival of VeniceCologne Carnival, the New Orleans Mardi Gras, the Rio de Janeiro carnival, and the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival.

The day immediately preceding Lent is variously called Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday"), Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday. Sometimes, it is the peak of the pre-Lenten festival, while sometimes it is largely occupied with preparations for Lent. The observances vary from culture to culture, and even from town to town.

Originally, in Lebanon and Syria, the last Thursday preceding Lent was called "Khamis el zakara". For Catholics, it was meant to be a day of remembrance of the dead ones. However, zakara (which means "remembrance", in Arabic) was gradually replaced by sakara (meaning "getting drunk" in Arabic), and so the occasion came to be known as Khamis el sakara, wherein celebrants indulge themselves with alcoholic beverages.

Fasting and abstinence

Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness (Jésus tenté dans le désert)James TissotBrooklyn Museum

Fasting during Lent was more prominent in ancient times than today. Socrates Scholasticus reports that in some places, all animal products were strictly forbidden, while various others permitted fish, or fish and fowl, others prohibited fruit and eggs, and still others permitted only bread. In many places, the observant abstained from food for a whole day until the evening, and at sunset, Western Christians traditionally broke the Lenten fast, which was often known as the Black Fast.[50][51] In India and Pakistan, many Christians continue this practice of fasting until sunset on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with some fasting in this manner throughout the whole season of Lent.[52]

For Catholics before 1966, the theoretical obligation of the penitential fast throughout Lent except on Sundays was to take only one full meal a day. In addition, a smaller meal, called a collation, was allowed in the evening, and a cup of some beverage, accompanied by a little bread, in the morning. In practice, this obligation, which was a matter of custom rather than of written law, was not observed strictly.[53] The 1917 Code of Canon Law allowed the full meal on a fasting day to be taken at any hour and to be supplemented by two collations, with the quantity and the quality of the food to be determined by local custom. Abstinence from meat was to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays and Saturdays in Lent. The Lenten fast ended on Holy Saturday at noon. Only those aged 21 to 59 were obliged to fast. As with all ecclesiastical laws, particular difficulties, such as strenuous work or illness, excused one from observance, and a dispensation from the law could be granted by a bishop or parish priest.[54] A rule of thumb is that the two collations should not add up to the equivalent of another full meal. Rather portions were to be: "sufficient to sustain strength, but not sufficient to satisfy hunger".[55]

In 1966, Pope Paul VI reduced the obligatory fasting days to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, abstinence days to Fridays and Ash Wednesday, and allowed episcopal conferences to replace abstinence and fasting with other forms of penitence such charity and piety, as declared and established in his apostolic constitution Paenitemini. This was done so that those in countries where the standard of living is lower can replace fasting with prayer, but "...where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given..."[56] This was made part of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which made obligatory fasting for those aged between 18 and 59, and abstinence for those aged 14 and upward.[57] The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference decided to allow other forms of Friday penance to replace that of abstinence from meat, whether in Lent or outside Lent, suggesting alternatives such as abstaining from some other food, or from alcohol or smoking; making a special effort at participating in family prayer or in Mass; making the Stations of the Cross; or helping the poor, sick, old, or lonely.[58] The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales made a similar ruling in 1985[59] but decided in 2011 to restore the traditional year-round Friday abstinence from meat.[60] The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has maintained the rule of abstention from meat on Friday only during Lent and considers poultry to be a type of meat but not fish or shellfish.[61][62]

Many ELCA Lutheran Churches advocate fasting during designated times such as Lent,[8][63] especially on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.[64][8][65][66] A Handbook for the Discipline of Lent delineates the following Lutheran fasting guidelines:[12]

  1. Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday with only one simple meal during the day, usually without meat.
  2. Refrain from eating meat (bloody foods) on all Fridays in Lent, substituting fish for example.
  3. Eliminate a food or food group for the entire season. Especially consider saving rich and fatty foods for Easter.
  4. Consider not eating before receiving Communion in Lent.
  5. Abstain from or limit a favorite activity (television, movies etc.) for the entire season, and spend more time in prayer, Bible study, and reading devotional material.
  6. Don't just give up something that you have to give up for your doctor or diet anyway. Make your fast a voluntary self-denial (i.e. discipline) that you offer to God in prayer.[12]

However, Martin Luther criticized the Roman Catholic church of his era for creating new and stricter fasts over the preceding centuries.[67] Not all Lutherans fast during lent, and churches which hold midweek services often hold dinners associated with the service.[68]

The historic Methodist homilies regarding the Sermon on the Mount stress the importance of the Lenten fast, which begins on Ash Wednesday.[69] The United Methodist Church therefore states that:

There is a strong biblical base for fasting, particularly during the 40 days of Lent leading to the celebration of Easter. Jesus, as part of his spiritual preparation, went into the wilderness and fasted 40 days and 40 nights, according to the Gospels.[70]

Good Friday, which is towards the end of the Lenten season, is traditionally an important day of communal fasting for Methodists.[71] Rev. Jacqui King, the minister of Nu Faith Community United Methodist Church in Houston explained the philosophy of fasting during Lent as "I'm not skipping a meal because in place of that meal I'm actually dining with God".[72]

Many of the Churches in the Reformed tradition retained the Lenten fast in its entirety.[7] The Reformed Church in America describes the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, as a day "focused on prayer, fasting, and repentance" and considers fasting a focus of the whole Lenten season,[73] as demonstrated in the "Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline", found in the Reformed liturgy for the Ash Wednesday service, which is read by the presider:[74]

We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ. I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent, by self-examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by practicing works of love, and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.[74]

Good Friday, which is towards the end of the Lenten season, is traditionally an important day of communal fasting for adherents of the Reformed faith.[71]

During the early Middle Ages, eggs, dairy products, and meat were generally forbidden. In favour of the traditional practice, observed both in East and West, Thomas Aquinas argued that "they afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust."[75] Aquinas also authorized the consumption of candy during Lent, because "sugared spices" (such as comfits) were, in his opinion, digestive aids on par with medicine rather than food.[76]

Jousting against Carnival is represented by a fat man on a beer barrel who wears a huge meat pie as headdress; Lent is represented by a thin gaunt woman on a cart (shown here) bearing Lenten fare: mussels, pretzels, and waffles. Oil painting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1558–1559).

In Spain, the bull of the Holy Crusade (renewed periodically after 1492) allowed the consumption of dairy products[77] and eggs during Lent in exchange for a contribution to the cause of the crusade.

Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, reports that "in Germany and the arctic regions", "great and religious persons" eat the tail of beavers as "fish" because of its superficial resemblance to "both the taste and colour of fish". The animal was very abundant in Wales at the time.[78]

In current Western societies the practice is considerably relaxed, though in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches, abstinence from all animal products including eggs, fish, fowl, and milk sourced from animals (e.g., cows and goats, as opposed to the milk of coconuts and soy beans) is still commonly practiced, so that, where this is observed, only vegetarian (or vegan) meals are consumed for the whole of Lent, 48 days in the Byzantine Rite. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s practices require a fasting period that is a great deal longer and there is some dispute over whether fish consumption is permissible.

In the tradition of the Western Catholic Church, abstinence from eating some form of food (generally meat, but not dairy or fish products) is distinguished from fasting. In principle, abstinence is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on every Friday of the year that is not a solemnity (a liturgical feast day of the highest rank); but in each country the episcopal conference can determine the form it is to take, perhaps replacing abstinence with other forms of penance.[57][79][80]

Even during Lent, the rule about solemnities holds, so that the obligation of Friday abstinence does not apply on 19 and 25 March when, as usually happens, the solemnities of Saint Joseph and the Annunciation are celebrated on those dates. The same applies to Saint Patrick's Day, which is a solemnity in the whole of Ireland as well as in dioceses that have Saint Patrick as principal patron saint. In some other places, too, where there are strong Irish traditions within the Catholic community, a dispensation is granted for that day.[81] In Hong Kong, where Ash Wednesday often coincides with Chinese New Year celebrations, a dispensation is then granted from the laws of fast and abstinence, and the faithful are exhorted to use some other form of penance.[82]

After the Protestant Reformation, in the Lutheran Church, "Church orders of the 16th century retained the observation of the Lenten fast, and Lutherans have observed this season with a serene, earnest attitude."[2] In the Anglican Churches, the Traditional Saint Augustine's Prayer Book: A Book of Devotion for Members of the Anglican Communion, a companion to the Book of Common Prayer, states that fasting is "usually meaning not more than a light breakfast, one full meal, and one half meal, on the forty days of Lent".[13] It further states that "the major Fast Days of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, as the American Prayer-Book indicates, are stricter in obligation, though not in observance, than the other Fast Days, and therefore should not be neglected except in cases of serious illness or other necessity of an absolute character."[83]

In many Christian countriesreligious processions during the season of Lent are often accompanied by a military escort both for security and parade. Ceuta, Spain

Traditionally, on Sunday, and during the hours before sunrise and after sunset, some Churches, such as Episcopalians, allow "breaks" in their Lent promises. For Roman Catholics, the Lenten penitential season ends after the Easter Vigil Mass. Orthodox Christians also break their fast after the Paschal Vigil, a service which starts around 11:00 pm on Holy Saturday, and which includes the Paschal celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. At the end of the service, the priest blesses cheese, eggs, flesh meats, and other items that the faithful have been abstaining from for the duration of Great Lent.

Lenten traditions and liturgical practices are less common, less binding, and sometimes non-existent among some liberal and progressive Christians.[84] A greater emphasis on anticipation of Easter Sunday is often encouraged more than the penitence of Lent or Holy Week.[85]

Some Christians as well as secular groups also interpret the Lenten fast in a positive tone, not as renunciation but as contributing to causes such as environmental stewardship and improvement of health.[86][87] Even some atheists find value in the Christian tradition and observe Lent.[88]

Media coverage

During Lent, BBC's Radio Four normally broadcasts a series of programmes called the Lent Talks.[89] These 15-minute programmes are normally broadcast on a Wednesday and have featured various speakers, such as John Lennox.[90]

Holy days within the season of Lent

Methodist minister distributing ashes to confirmands kneeling at the chancel rails on Ash Wednesday
Church of the Holy SepulchreOld Jerusalem on GolgothaMount Calvary, where tradition claims Jesus was crucified and died

There are several holy days within the season of Lent:

  • Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity, such as the Lutheran ChurchesRoman Rite of the Catholic Church, Methodist ChurchesReformed traditions, etc.
  • In the Ambrosian Rite and the Mozarabic Rite, there is no Ash Wednesday: Lent begins on the first Sunday and the fast begins on the first Monday.
  • The Sundays in Lent carry Latin names in German Lutheranism, derived from the beginning of the Sunday's introit. The first is called Invocabit, the second Reminiscere, the third Oculi, the fourth Laetare, the fifth Judica, the sixth Palm Sunday.
  • The fourth Sunday in Lent, which marks the halfway point between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, is referred to as Laetare Sunday by Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and many other Christians, because of the traditional Entrance Antiphon of the Mass. Due to the more "joyful" character of the day (since laetare in Latin means "rejoice"), the priest, deacon, and subdeacon have the option of wearing vestments of a rose colour (pink) instead of violet.
  • Additionally, the fourth Lenten Sunday, Mothering Sunday, which has become known as Mother's Day in the United Kingdom and an occasion for honouring mothers of children, has its origin in a 16th-century celebration of the Mother Church.
  • The fifth Sunday in Lent, also known in some denominations as Passion Sunday (and in some denominations also applies to Palm Sunday) marks the beginning of Passiontide.
  • The sixth Sunday in Lent, commonly called Palm Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent immediately preceding Easter.
  • Wednesday of Holy Week, Holy Wednesday (also sometimes known as Spy Wednesday) commemorates Judas Iscariot's bargain to betray Jesus.[91][92][93]
  • Thursday of Holy Week is known as Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, and is a day Christians commemorate the Last Supper shared by Christ with his disciples.
  • The next day is Good Friday, on which Christians remember Jesus' crucifixion, death, and burial.
  • Saint Patrick's Day (March 17) always falls within Lent. The patron saint of Ireland, his solemnity is often considered a "day off" for Irish people during their Lenten fast.[94][95][96][97]

Easter Triduum

This service consists of readings from the Scriptures, especially John the Evangelist's account of the Passion of Jesus, followed by prayers, veneration of the cross of Jesus, and a communion service at which the hosts consecrated at the evening Mass of the day before are distributed. The Easter Vigil during the night between Holy Saturday afternoon and Easter Sunday morning starts with the blessing of a fire and a special candle, and with readings from Scripture associated with baptism. Then, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is sung, water is blessed, baptism and confirmation of adults may take place, the people are invited to renew the promises of their own baptism, and finally, Mass is celebrated in the usual way from the Preparation of the Gifts onwards.In the Anglican, Lutheran, Old Catholic, Roman Catholic, and many other churches, the Easter Triduum is a three-day event that begins Maundy Thursday evening, with the entrance hymn of the Mass of the Lord's Supper. After this celebration, the consecrated Hosts are taken solemnly from the altar to a place of reposition, where the faithful are invited to meditate in the presence of the consecrated Hosts.This is the Church's response to Jesus' question to the disciples sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Could you not watch with me one hour?" On the next day, the liturgical commemoration of the Passion of Jesus Christ is celebrated at 3 pm, unless a later time is chosen due to work schedules.

Holy Week and the season of Lent, depending on denomination and local custom, end with Easter Vigil at sundown on Holy Saturday or on the morning of Easter Sunday. It is custom for some churches to hold sunrise services which include open air celebrations in some places.

Vestments

The chancel of a Lutheran church decorated with red paraments, the liturgical colour of the last week of Lent, Holy Week, in the Lutheran and Anglican Churches[98]

In the Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and many Anglican churches, the pastor's vestments are violet during the season of Lent. Roman Catholic priests wear white vestments on solemnity days for St. Joseph (March 19) and the Annunciation (March 25), although these solemnities get transferred to another date if they fall on a Sunday in Lent or at any time during Holy Week. On the fourth Sunday in Lent, rose-coloured (pink) vestments may be worn in lieu of violet. Historically, black had also been used: Pope Innocent III declared black to be the proper color for Lent, though Durandus of Saint-Pourçain claims violet has preference over black.[99]

In some Anglican churches, a type of unbleached linen or muslin known as "Lenten array" is worn during the first three weeks of Lent, crimson is worn during Passiontide, and on holy days, the colour proper to the day is worn.[100] In certain other Anglican churches, as an alternative to violet for all of Lent except Holy Week and red beginning on Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday, Lenten array, typically made of sackcloth such as burlap and trimmed with crimson cloth, often velvet, is worn, even during Holy Week—since the sackcloth represents penance and the crimson edges represent the Passion of Christ. Even the veils that cover the altar crosses or crucifixes and statuary (if any) are made of the same sackcloth with the crimson trim.

See also

Christianity

Islam

Judaism

Modern interpretations

  • Lent Event, asks people to donate the value of what they forego during Lent

General

References

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