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| JOURNEY THROUGH LENT The word comes from an Anglo-Saxon word for Spring. It is also related to the word 'lengthen'. Early Christians felt that Easter was so important that they needed to spend time preparing for it. As early as the second century CE many Christians were to be found spending time fasting as part of that preparation. Over the next few centuries the time spent fasting increased; this was probably connected to remembering the forty days Jesus spent fasting at the start of his ministry. (Matthew 4.1-2)  If you look at a diary or calendar and do some counting you'll see that it's more than forty days counting from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. Count again, but this time don't include Sundays. How many days do you make it now? Traditionally Christians did not fast on Sundays - because of its association, or connection, with Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday. Lent was traditionally an important time for people preparing to become Christians. Now, new Christians are baptised at any time through the year. This was not always so. In early times Christians would be baptised at Easter - at dawn on Easter Day. The time spent preparing for this was very important and this added to the importance of Lent. When it became popular for babies or infants to be baptised at any time in the year the importance of Lent as a training period for new Christians lessened. Using this site The 'journey' links on the Home Page lead mainly to pupil activities: teachers are advised to study the Notes for teachers section. |
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