“The heart of St Dunstan’s College, the Chapel, is always open as a space for quiet reflection and prayer.”

What is Lent?

Fasting, Prayer, Almsgiving

The season of Lent is a liturgical season consisting of forty days of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, beginning on Ash Wednesday and concluding at sundown on Holy Thursday. The official liturgical colour for the season of Lent is purple, symbolising penitence. Lent begins on Wednesday, 5 March, 2025.

The observance of Lent is related to the celebration of Easter. In the first three centuries of the Christian era, most Christians prepared for Easter by fasting and praying for three days. In some places this was extended to the entire week before Easter (now known as “Holy Week”). There is evidence that in Rome, the length of preparation was three weeks.

The word derives from the old english word ‘lencten’, meaning spring – the time of lengthening days. There is biblical support for doing penance, but the season of Lent, like all liturgical seasons, developed over time. In its early three-week form, Lent was the period of intense spiritual and liturgical preparation for catechumens before they were baptised at Easter. Many members of the community imitated this time of preparation with the catechumens. By the fourth century (when Christianity was legalized), Lent had developed into its current length of forty days, the length of the fast and temptation of Jesus in the desert (cf. Luke 4:1-13).

Recently, research has suggested that the development of Lent was also influenced by the forty-day span of fasting practiced by many in the early Church (especially monks). This fast, beginning right after Epiphany (January 6th) stressed prayer and penance. Once most people were Christian and baptised as infants, Lent lost the connection to the preparation of catechumens and the themes of repentance and fasting became dominant.

The Church, in an attempt to help Christians, asks all to fast and abstain from meat on certain days. Fasting means to limit food to one full meal a day, with the possibility of two smaller meals (not adding up to a full meal) as needed. Abstinence means not eating meat, although fish is allowed. Anglicans are asked to observe all days of fasting and abstinence, which is one of the precepts of the Church.

Others abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, and if one’s work or health make it inadvisable to fast or abstain from meat, they are not obligated to do so. Some people give up all dairy products and meat during all of the Lenten season. Since chickens continue to produce eggs and cow’s milk, the custom developed to make the milk into cheese and colour the eggs so that when Easter arrived, no food would be wasted.

Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving

Jesus tells us how important these aspects of our lives are, all the time and not just in Lent  – have a look at Matthew 6:1-18. However, as the days go by, we often find that we have slipped up – Lent is a time for getting ourselves into training once again, a time for living intensely the way we should always live.

Through PRAYER we link up with God. We praise him for the wonder of the world and for the wonder of our own being. We intercede with him for those suffering and those in need of any kind. We ask him to forgive the things we have done wrong, – our laziness, our selfishness, our stubbornness or pride, and we ask him for those things that we need to live good lives.

The idea of FASTING is found many times in the Old and New Testaments. At the beginning of Jesus’ public life, he fasted in the desert for forty days and forty nights. He recommended it to help people become humble before God and to prepare them for making important decisions. Fasting nowadays is understood as having one main meal and two small ones. Often in Lent we are asked voluntarily to do without something we enjoy – it may be food, or sweets, or cold drinks, or going to the cinema or even gossiping! We do it to support our prayer, to promote self-discipline and to help cleanse ourselves of previous abuses or sin. It enables us to be in solidarity with the poor and with those who are severely tempted.

It also helps us to use the money we have saved to give ALMS – that is to help those who are poor in some way. The people of the Old Testament were encouraged always to remember the poor. If some of the harvest was left, the widows and orphans would come and gather it and poor people were to be helped generously and with dignity. In the New Testament Jesus tells his followers to give without showing off, and without expecting anything in return. He says “As often as you did it for one of the least of my brothers or sisters, you did it for me.” Almsgiving is not just about giving money or food or clothing. It is also about giving our time and our talents to help others help themselves, and so make society a better place.

We hope that you join us for this holy pilgrimage and holy time. Pray for us as we pray for you.

Fr Jerome Prins