Holy Season of Lent 2025
Just like our weather seasons have unique characteristics, so too do seasons within the Church. Lent is one of the five seasons of the Church liturgical calendar, the others being Advent, Christmas, Easter and Ordinary Time ( Ordinary as in ‘ordered dated time’)
The Lenten 40 days (excluding Sundays) directly precede Easter and is a solemn time centred on Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. While Lent is often associated with the Catholic faith, many of our Orthodox and Protestant sisters and brothers in baptism also observe it. It is vitally important for us to realise that Lent (as is each church Season) is both a personal and a communal opportunity. We are invited to, and have the opportunity to engage in personal and communal choices, decisions and commitments to grow in appreciation of the Lord Jesus and his love. There is a divine invitation to grow in personal and communal awareness of how I / We might grow in holiness.
There is no better time to reconnect with or deepen one’s faith than Lent. During this time, we try in a more disciplined way to allow the Holy Spirit draw us closer to God as we prepare for the joyous celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter.
Lent can be an incredibly rewarding time for our faith lives. Like Advent, where we prepare for Jesus’s birth at Christmas, Lent is also a liturgical season of preparation, as we get ready for Easter—the Church’s greatest and most central celebration.
In contrast to Advent and Easter, Lent is more solemn. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, where we ask God for mercy and forgiveness, becomes more popular. It’s a time when we re-discover how to confess and re-discover the beauty and the power of God’s eternal love of and mercy for us.
Praying and reflection the Stations of the Cross (a tradition often taking place on Fridays during Lent) allows us to pray Jesus’s final hours. More solemn hymns replace celebratory hymns during Mass, and church decoration is more muted and simple.
The first day of Lent is Ash Wednesday, on which we use ashes on our forehead in the shape of a cross to remember our own mortality, remember our complete dependence on God and begin our journey of prayer and penance desiring to be closer to Jesus in our every thought, word and deed.
Lent is far too important of a season to skip over or treat like any other time of the year.
Let us use this time well, purposefully and prayerfully.
Do you want to Fast this Lent?
In the words of Pope Francis
Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words; be silent and listen.
‘Lent is a new beginning, a path leading to the certain goal of Easter,
Christ’s victory over death’.
‘Lent is the favourable season for renewing our encounter with Christ,
living in his word, in the Sacraments and in our neighbour.’
Pope Francis
