The church calendar is essentially a calendar of feast days, preceded by days of preparation for feasting. Advent is a time of preparation for the feast of Christmas, when we celebrate the Father’s gift of His Son; Lent is a time of preparation for the feast of Easter, when we celebrate the Son’s resurrection in the Spirit; the Sundays after Easter prepare us for the climactic festival of Pentecost, when the Father and Son poured out the gift of the Spirit.
This coming Wednesday is the first day of the 40-day period that many Christians celebrate as Lent. Lent is a period of fasting and preparation prior to Easter, and is set aside each year for meditation on our own sins, on the sufferings and death of Jesus, and on the coming joy of Easter.
Many Christians observe Lent by fasting, self-denial, sacrificing pleasures. Those are certainly appropriate practices. Even if our Lenten fast is more symbolic than real, it is a constant reminder of the demand that we need to deny the flesh, deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus.
Yet, in the midst of Lenten fasts, Christians have sometimes forgotten that Lent has a goal. It is not an end in itself, but a preparation for something else. Our fastings are not self-deprivation for the sake of self-deprivation, but purification and cleansing for a feast.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
