Lent: what it is and what to do

Lent is the liturgical time in which the Christian prepares, through a path of penance and conversion, to live fully the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, celebrated every year on Easter holidays, a fundamental and decisive event for the experience of Christian faith. It is divided into five Sundays, from Ash Wednesday to the Mass of the "Supper of the Lord" excluded. Sundays of this time always take precedence over the feasts of the Lord and all solemnities. Ash Wednesday is fasting day; on Fridays of Lent, abstinence from meat is observed. During the time of Lent the Glory is not said and the alleluia is not sung; on Sunday, however, the profession always defends with the Creed. The liturgical color of this time is purple, it is the color of penance, humility and service, of conversion and of returning to Jesus.

The Lenten journey is:

• a baptismal time,

in which the Christian prepares to receive the sacrament of Baptism or to revive in his own existence the memory and meaning of having already received it;

• a penitential time,

in which the baptized is called to grow in faith, "under the sign of divine mercy", in an ever more authentic adhesion to Christ through the continuous conversion of the mind, heart and life, expressed in the sacrament of Reconciliation.

The Church, echoing the Gospel, proposes some specific commitments to the faithful:

• more assiduous listening to the word of God:

the word of Scripture not only narrates the works of God, but contains a unique efficacy that no human word, although high, possesses;

• more intense prayer:

to meet God and enter into intimate communion with him, Jesus invites us to be vigilant and persevering in prayer, 'In order not to fall into temptation' (Mt 26,41);

• fasting and almsgiving:

they contribute to giving unity to the person, body and soul, helping them to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord; they open their hearts to the love of God and neighbor. By freely choosing to deprive ourselves of something to help others, we concretely show that the neighbor is not a stranger to us.

PLENARY INDULGENCE: every Friday of Lent reciting the Via Crucis or the prayer to Jesus Crucified:

PRAYER TO THE CRUCIFIED JESUS

Here I am, my beloved and good Jesus, prostrated in your most holy Presence I pray you with the most lively fervor to print in my heart feelings of faith, hope, charity, pain of my sins and a proposal not to be offended anymore, while I with all love and with all compassion go considering your five wounds, starting with what the holy prophet David said of you, O my Jesus, "They punctured my hands and my feet, they counted all the my bones. "

- Pater, Ave and Gloria (for the purchase of the plenary indulgence)

(He who recites this prayer after Communion, before the image of Jesus Crucified, is granted the plenary indulgence on the individual Fridays of Lent and Good Friday; the partial indulgence on all other days of the year. Pio IX)