Wail not, o cactus,
...'cos there are thorns too in the Christ's crown!
Wish You a Wonderful Season of Lent
from Worldofceleb.com
Season of Celebration :
February 6 – March 16, 2008
In Western
Christianity, Lent is the period (or season) from Ash Wednesday
to Holy Saturday. In Eastern Christianity, the period before
Easter is known as Great Lent to distinguish it from the Winter
Lent, or Advent (known in Greek as the "Great Fast" and the
"Nativity Fast", respectively). The general theme of Lent is
that of Christ leading us along the Jerusalem road from
servitude to sonship, from the rule of Satan to the Kingdom of
God. As we enter the season of Lent in the spirit of the Church
and of her liturgy, we seek to wash away the stains of sin and
to rid ourselves of all that prevents us from living a truly
Christian life. We offer these instuctions, prayers and
activities to help in our attempt to be united to our suffering
Savior. The more perfectly we are united with Him in the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Eucharist the more we shall
share His new life and glorification at Easter.
Lent is a season of looking within oneself. It is a time for
soul searching and dedicating ourselves to the service of the
Lord. As Lent begins, reach out to all the people you know with
a special message and spread the glory of the Lord....
Historically, Lent is the forty day period before Easter, excluding
Sundays, it began on Ash Wednesday and ended on Holy Saturday (the day
before Easter Sunday). In recent years, this has been modified so that
it now ends with evening Mass on Holy Thursday, to prepare the way for
Triduum.
Lent is the penitential season of approximately 40 days set aside by the
Church in order for the faithful to prepare for the celebration of the
Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. During this holy season,
inextricably connected to the Paschal Mystery, the Catechumens prepare
for Christian initiation, and current Church members prepare for Easter
by a recalling of Baptism and by works of penance, that is, prayer,
fasting and almsgiving.
Even in the early Church, Lent was the season for prayerful and
penitential preparation for the feast of Easter. Though the obligation
of penance was originally only imposed on those who had committed public
sins and crimes, by medieval times all the faithful voluntarily
performed acts of penance to repair for their sins.
Ash Wednesday is the clarion call to “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mk
1:15). For the next forty days, the faithful willingly submit to fasting
and self-denial in imitation of Our Lord’s forty-day fast in the desert.
It is in these dark and still nights, these desert-times, that the soul
experiences its greatest growth. There, in the inner arena, the soul
battles the world, the flesh and the devil just as Our Lord battled
Satan's triple temptation in the desert. His battle was external, for
Jesus could not sin; our battle is interior, but with a hope sustained
by the knowledge of Christ’s Easter victory over sin and death. His
victory is our renewal, our “spring” — which is the meaning of the
Anglo-Saxon word, “lengten” or Lent.
