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Lectionary Bible Study - Introduction to Lent & Holy Week

LENT

The season of Lent is a season of penitence or fasting preceding Easter.  It is traditionally forty days in length, symbolic of the time spent by Moses on Mount Sinai, the forty years’ wanderings in the wilderness, the forty days’ temptation of Jesus or his forty hours in the tomb.  It is a period set aside in the Church for personal examination, contrition, repentance and spiritual formation.  Unlike other seasons of the Christian Year, the six Sundays in Lent do not observe the fast.  Therefore, the designation is “Sundays in Lent”, rather than “Sundays of Lent”.

Observance of a penitential fast as the Church approaches Good Friday has been a part of the liturgy of the church for almost its entire history.  The first mention of such a fast was by Irenaeus (c. 130-200).  And the Canons of Nicaea (c. 325) that came out of that historic meeting that created the primary creedal statements of the church stipulate a period of Lent, consisting of the forty days before Easter.  Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) wrote to the church that Lent should not only be observed in the worship of the Church but by every believer, “so that we, who through the past year have lived too much for ourselves, should mortify ourselves to our Creator through abstinence.”[1]

During the early centuries, observance of the fast was very strict.  Only one meal a day was permitted (and that, near the end of the day), and meat, fish, eggs, milk and cheese all had to be “given up for Lent”.  By the ninth century, these restrictions began to be relaxed.  By the 18^th century, fasting had moved away from a strict emphasis on food and toward the “fasting” of other elements of life, such as abstaining from festivities, avoiding marriage feasts, almsgiving and concentrating upon spiritual disciplines.  The emphasis on fasting as a way of preparing ourselves for the agony of our Lord continues to today, with the traditions of using the season of Lent to institute a discipline (e.g., going on a diet, exercising daily, etc.) or in giving up some choice food (like chocolate, sweets, etc.) for Lent.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday (see below), which is forty days before Easter.  It continues through Holy Week, and concludes with the Saturday before Easter (technically, at noontime).  Holy Week, which begins with Palm Sunday and continues through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, is both the conclusion and apex of Lent, a time for intensive commemoration of the sufferings and death of Jesus.  This final intensive preparation of penitence is accomplished in anticipation of Easter Day and the inauguration of the season of Eastertide.  The traditional color of Lent is purple (the color of penitence), and Good Friday is black to designate mourning

HOLY WEEK

Holy Week is the week from Palm Sunday (celebrating the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem) through the Saturday before Easter.  It is actually the conclusion of Lent, ending at noon on Easter Eve.  Easter Sunday is not part of Holy Week, but is rather the beginning of a new season – Eastertide.

 The celebration of Holy Week began in a unique way.  Towards the end of the 4^th century A.D., a European pilgrim named Egeria visited Jerusalem.  Part of her visit included Holy Week.  To her delight, she discovered that the church in Jerusalem had developed over the centuries a rich and complex Holy Week liturgy, based not only on the actual days of the week that the various events occurred, but on the actual places where they occurred.  This could obviously only occur in just this way in Jerusalem.  But the reports of Egeria back to the European church moved the western churches to adapt the practice to local needs.  As early as the 5^th century in Spain, local versions of the Holy Week re-enactment liturgy were adopted; from there, they spread across the rest of the church in Europe.  Rome was the last of the western churches to adopt the practice, doing so in the 12^th century.