Lent

[DJQuackQuack]

so wat is everyone else giving up for lent? i'm personally giving up being sarcastic at my friends and family's request. since being sarcastic is a part of who i am, i am totally gonna b depressed :(

[Trag]

I used to joke and say I was giving up school, or homework. :P Give up something simple like online video games, and then start playing console games.

[Forever Atlas]

So can someone explain to me what the purpose really of lent is or where it stems from?

[Hollow Bastion]

Originally Posted by Forever Atlas

So can someone explain to me what the purpose really of lent is or where it stems from?

Lent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lent, in some Christian denominations, is the forty-day-long liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter.[1] The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where according to the Bible he endured temptation by Satan.

[Grace Assassin]

Originally Posted by DJQQ

i'm personally giving up being sarcastic

Wow me 2!!!1!

Wait. I just violated my sacrifice... or did I?...


Personally, I find sacrificing for Lent to be hypocritical but hey.

[wu tang goku]

Originally Posted by Forever Atlas

So can someone explain to me what the purpose really of lent is or where it stems from?

I think it's time for Isaiah 58: 1-14. Yes I am quoting the WHOLE THING instead of picking and choosing; the whole thing is relevant.

From the New American Bible translation:

True Fasting

Cry out full-throated and unsparingly,
lift up your voice like a trumpet blast;
Tell my people their wickedness,
and the house of Jacob their sins.

NOTE: This above verse is directed toward the prophet.

They seek me day after day,
and desire to know my ways,
Like a Nation that has done what is just
and not abandoned the law of their God;
They ask me to declare what is due them,
pleased to gain access to God.
"Why do we fast, and you do not see it?
afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?"

Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits,
and drive all your laborers.
Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting,
striking with wicked claw.
Would that today you might fast
so as to make your voice heard on high!
Is this the manner of fasting I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
Your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the Lord will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.
He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
"Repairer of the breach," they shall call you,
"Restorer of ruined homesteads."

If you hold back your foot on the sabbath
from the following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you call the sabbath a delight,
and the Lord's holy day honorable;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice--
Then you shall delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

NOTE: In other words, mere external worship DOES NOT AVAIL with God, change MUST BE INTERNAL. A change of behavior, a repentence (meaning a changing of ways). The whole season of Lent is a reminder to oneself, to look at something in your life and ask yourself "Do I really need this? Can I live without it?" referring to the amount of luxury we all have. A lot of countries (especially the US) are far too settled into consumption. America consumes SO MUCH and SO MANY resources. Let's say every few days of the week you have top-prime steaks for dinner. Do you really NEED to have wonderful, luxurious dinners every night? You can live without it. Give that money that you spend for those steaks to a food bank or something.

It's also applies temporally, or, usage of time. Give up your own time spent on something FOR YOU to do something FOR OTHERS. Spend time with your family, or friends, or hell, nobody special. Essentially it calls for a change of disposition. Treating others and ourselves better.

I remember hearing about a psychological study that concluded it takes approximately 5-6 weeks to change a learned behavior. Guess how long Lent is.

Stop treating it like a New Year's resolution.

ADDED

This is a VERY good quote, and believe it or not it came from Pope Benedict XVI from his Ash Wednesday message (got this from a grad student I know who goes to the Catholic Theological Union at Chicago):

Originally Posted by Cardinal "Ratz"

In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly bring benefits to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God. In the Apostolic Constitution Pænitemini of 1966, the Servant of God Paul VI saw the need to present fasting within the call of every Christian to “no longer live for himself, but for Him who loves him and gave himself for him … he will also have to live for his brethren“ (cf. Ch. I). Lent could be a propitious time to present again the norms contained in the Apostolic Constitution, so that the authentic and perennial significance of this long held practice may be rediscovered, and thus assist us to mortify our egoism and open our heart to love of God and neighbor, the first and greatest Commandment of the new Law and compendium of the entire Gospel (cf. Mt 22, 34-40).

The faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining them as “twisted and tangled knottiness” (Confessions, II, 10.18), writes: “I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness” (Sermo 400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708). Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.

At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15). By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.

From what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.