lent
Introduction My first exposure to Lent was with the 2002 film 40 Days and 40 Nights, during which the handsome brother of a priest decides to go without sex until Palm Sunday. If this is your first introduction to Lent, allow me to clue you in a little more gracefully. Lent is the time leading up to Easter. In the Christian liturgical calendar it is a period of forty days (beginning on Ash Wednesday) devoted to spiritual preparation. During Lent we ready ourselves to receive Christ’s sacrifice on the cross with fresh meaning and significance. I learned about Lent through the movies. Prior to that film I’m sure I’d never even heard the word before; or if I had, I certainly hadn’t registered it as having anything to do with me, with Christ, or with spirituality. And while I imagine that every Catholic priest is rolling his eyes over the idiocy of Protestant clergymen, I think it’s telling that even a well-educated pastor could go for so long and not know anything about Lent. It’s because no one cares.
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