What is Lent?

+JMJ

Praised be Jesus Christ!
Lent is quickly approaching dear friends in Christ! I thought it might be fun to give some definitions of what Lent is today.

The season of prayer and penance before Easter. Its purpose is to better prepare the faithful for the feast of the Resurrection, and dispose them for a more fruitful reception of the graces that Christ merited by his passion and death. In the Latin Rite, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and continues for forty days, besides Sundays, until Easter Sunday. Ash Wednesday occurs on any day from February 4 to March 11, depending on the date of Easter. Originally the period of fasting in preparation for Easter did not, as a rule, exceed two or three days. But by the time of the Council of Nicaea (325) forty days were already customary. And ever since, this length of time has been associated with Christ's forty-day fast in the desert before beginning his public life. According to the prescription of Pope Paul VI, in revising the Church's laws of fast and abstinence, "The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation throughout the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday, that is to say the first days of Great Lent, according to the diversity of rites. Their substantial observance binds gravely" (Paenitemini, III, norm II). Besides fast and abstinence on specified days, the whole Lenten season is to be penitential, with stress on prayer, reception of the sacraments, almsgiving, and the practice of charity. (Etym. Anglo-Saxon lengten, lencten, spring, Lent.)
Source

And from the Catholic Dictionary by Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D.

Lent (LEHNT): (From Middle English lenten; Anglo-Saxon lencten: spring) The forty day liturgical season of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving in preparation for Easter. In the first three centuries, Lent lasted only two or three days. Later, it grew to three or four weeks. The number forty is first detected in the Canons of Nicaea (A.D. 325), Probably to recall Our Lord's forty days in the desert before His public ministry. In the East and West and throughout the centuries, the length of the fast has varied. An important dimension of the Lenten observance was the celebration of Mass by the Holy Father at what are called station churches. The present sacramentary recalls this custom and "strongly encourages the chief shepherd of the diocese to gather his people in this way." The Lenten Liturgy also highlights the present restoration of the Scrutiny Masses on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of the season for the catechumens (now called the "elect"), who will be initiated at the Easter Vigil. CCC 540, 1095, 1438
Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., Rev. Peter M.J. Catholic Dictionary:Revised. Huntington, IN. Our Sunday Visitor. 2002. 464-465.

May God bless you all abundantly this lent as we grow closer to Christ.

Lord, Thy Will Be Done!