since you asked...
How did the season of Lent come about?
Pope Benedict XIV, in a letter addressed to the world’s bishops, dated May 30, 1741, expressed his grief at the spirit of relaxation and excessive dispensation which had taken hold within the Church with regard to the discipline of Lent. “The observance of Lent,” he wrote, “is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the Cross of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God's glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity and of private woe.” Though the scholarly pontiff expressed an ancient sentiment of the Church, the current discipline with regard to Lent is, perhaps, even more mitigated today than when he wrote those words.
The English word “Lent” derives from a Teutonic word for springtime. The Latin word for this holy season, quadragesima, meaning the “forty days” (more precisely, the “fortieth day”), appears to imitate the Greek term, tessarakoste (fortieth). Though some of the Fathers of the Church (e.g., St. Jerome, St. Leo the Great, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Isidore of Seville, and others) held that this period, marked especially by fasting and abstinence, was of Apostolic origin, there is little historical evidence to support this argument. There exists, rather, ample evidence to demonstrate a wide variety of traditions, both with regard to the length of the period and the ascetical practices expected of the Catholic faithful in the period prior to the celebration of Easter.
In many places in the early Church, a pre-Easter fast for some period of time – up to a week -- was apparently enjoined on catechumens, as well as on penitents seeking reconciliation with the Church after having confessed to certain mortal sins. By the fourth century, a three-week period of preparation was in place in Rome. There is also evidence that by the mid-fourth century, a penitential fast of forty days, in imitation of the Lord’s forty days in the desert, was expected for all Christians. At first, the period of fasting for a penitential season was not, in fact, precisely forty days, in as much as Sundays were never observed as days of fasting. The six weeks of Lent provided, therefore, for thirty-six days, which Pope St. Gregory, and others, recognized as a “spiritual tithe,” i.e., a tenth of the year’s 365 days. At a later time, the days of the previous (seventh) week, beginning with Wednesday, were added, so as to provide for forty days of actual fasting. The eastern Churches, in keeping with their ancient custom of never fasting on Saturday or Sunday, begin the Lenten observance some two weeks earlier.
The precise nature of the fast has also varied widely, but has never been so diminished as in contemporary Universal Church legislation and practice. Until 1966, with changes enacted by Pope Paul VI, fasting meant, as a minimum, only one full meal a day. Up to two small meals (“collations”) came to be permitted in many areas, and eventually allowed, universally. (Until 1918, these were measured rather precisely.) In addition to a single meal, it was common in many times and places to abstain from all flesh meat, as well as from milk, eggs and cheese. The latter is still the law of the Oriental Churches, which even exclude fish for this period. But exceptions have almost always existed; for example, for laborers, the sick, and even for students (lest they flag in the course of their studies!). In some periods and places, in the Western Church, meat was allowed at the single meal of the day, on designated days (though never on Fridays or Ash Wednesday). Fasting and abstinence in various forms were also previously expected on all Fridays of the year, ember days (twelve specially designated penitential days), Advent and the vigils of certain feasts.
The current universal legislation as found in canon law (canons 1250-1253) follows the spirit of Pope Paul VI’s 1966 apostolic constitution, Paenitemini. Emphasis is now placed on the responsibility of the individual member of the Church to embrace penitential practices in his or her life, especially on the Fridays of the year, and during Lent. Only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are now designated as days of fasting and abstinence (from meat) for all (except children, the elderly, etc.). In the current legislation, renewed encouragement is also given to works of charity and prayer as a way of marking penitential days and seasons. National conferences of bishops, with the approval of the Holy See, have the responsibility for legislating local (national) practices with regard to Lenten observance and other days of fasting and penance.
Fr. James F. Garneau, Ph.D., is Pastor of St. Mary’s Church and Missions, Mount Olive, NC.