Last week was the beginning of the season of Lent on the church’s calendar. I decided that it would be a good idea to teach my middle school Sunday School Class about Lent and the church calendar. When we started talking about it, the kids were full of questions, which made me think it would be worthwhile to explain a little about Lent, Ash Wednesday, and the church calendar.
“Lent” comes from the German word for “Spring.” The observance of the season of Lent isn’t universal in the church, as many Protestant groups don’t observe various parts of the ecclesiastical calendar.. Treating the 6 weeks preceding Easter as a special season dates back to the early days of the church, though there is little evidence that it goes back to the time of the apostles.
The first reference to setting aside the 40 days before Easter for fasting and prayer happens with the creation of the first church calendar by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The Council of Nicaea was the first big meeting of church leaders from all over the world after Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire. It was the first time the church had the opportunity to meet and agree on anything. They covered a great deal of ground, including establishing a church calendar. This is the earliest mention of fasting and preparation for Easter. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean that it started in 325. It is likely that it was the practice of the church for some time preceding Nicaea, as there is no evidence that the church invented the observances of the church out of whole cloth. It is likely the case that the practice of observing Lent has its roots in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
The first observances of Lent specifically involved candidates for baptism, which often took place on Easter. Candidates would spend Lent fasting, praying, reflecting on their sins, and on Jesus’ life death and resurrection. The idea was to prepare your heart, mind, and soul for baptism. You were publicly committing to follow Jesus for the rest of your life, and the church wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting yourself into. The writings put out by Nicaea associate the 40 days of Lent with the gospel accounts of Jesus’ 40 days fasting and being tempted in the wilderness while preparing for ministry. Candidates for baptism were preparing themselves for the Christian life, thus the two concepts were joined.
Over time, the practice of fasting, praying, and spiritually preparing for Easter during Lent spread and began to include the rest of the church. Other practices were added, like Ash Wednesday, in which believers have ashes spread on their faces as a sign that they are beginning the season of mourning their sins and preparing for Easter. The earliest clear reference to Ash Wednesday in church literature takes place around the 7th century. This is also the time period when the church began to establish Lent as a part of the calendar for all members. However, all of the early references to the practice appear in liturgical handbooks. It isn’t until the 11th century that Pope Urban II recommended the use of ashes at the start of the Lenten season, thus formally establishing it in the practice of the church. However, the use of ashes as a public sign of repentance goes back to the early church.
The practice of putting ashes on your face as an outward sign of repentance goes back to the ancient Jewish practice of covering their faces with ashes as a sign to others when they were in mourning or were repenting of sin. Examples can be found in Job 42 and Daniel 9.
During the medieval era, the practice of burning the palms from the Palm Sunday service the previous year for Ash Wednesday services was added. Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter when Jesus was greeted by the people of Jerusalem as he arrived in the city. They waved palm branches and laid them on the path before him. This was a greeting reserved for a conquering king arriving at the capital. Now they are burned because the specific stores that give us a discount. We also have a contract with a business called McNaughton. It’s kind of a lease program; we pay a set amount, but then we request books through that, and then those books are free under that lease umbrella. So we get a number of books that way, and then through the different library vendors, where we get a certain amount off the standard price. Also, at Barnes and Noble, we get 50% off once a year.”
It’s like when you go to a thrift store to buy something for your house; if you are constantly bringing things into your home, you have to get rid of something at some point. “There was some concern about the number (of books--700) that we were able to remove that day, and that was definitely not the plan, but we were just able to go through it quickly. There was not anything that came out of the Montana room at all. And then we didn’t get to the young adult section either.
Concerning the letter to the editor in this weeks paper: “The idea has been mentioned a couple of times in the last few years, but to my knowledge, I am talking to Rich Jesperson (a member of the Chouteau Couty Library Foundation) about it. He was at a city council meeting and the city council said they weren’t interested. And if your city council is not interested, it won’t happen.”
