06/03/2025
What is Lent?
5 March was Ash Wednesday, the doorway into the forty day liturgical season called Lent. "Lent" is related to the word "lengthen." In Bali, where the length of a day hardly varies from month to month this may be difficult to imagine, but this is the time of year when, in the lands away from the equator, the daylight lasts longer and longer each evening.
Let's forty days are patterned after the forty days our Lord Jesus Christ fasted and resisted temptation in the wilderness. The ashes of "Ash Wednesday" are an ancient symbol of grief, in this case grief over so often missing the mark with regard to God's good standards. Lent is a time to do more deliberately what we ought always to do, namely to follow the path of Jesus, who used God's word to battle every temptation the devil threw his way. The most important fasting is fasting from sin, so let's make that our priority between now and Resurrection Sunday.
