Welcome to Lent

Between my father's recent death and my own recent battle with a cold, I haven't posted much (thanks to Tim J and SGD, who have!), but with today being the beginning of Lent, it's appropriate for me to put up the posts relating to the Annual Lent Fight (which hasn't been so much of a fight in recent years, since we've been rigorously documenting claims regarding Lent from the official canonical and liturgical sources).

Here goes:

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

13 thoughts on “Welcome to Lent”

  1. Welcome back, Jimmy. Been waiting for your return to hear your take on (among other things) the new mythology/theology references in BSG, as revealed by the 5th cyclon.
    Hope you are feeling better and know that we are all praying for the repose of your father.
    May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

  2. Jimmy, good to see you back. Your posting of the Annual Lent Fight is becoming a tradition itself.

  3. Glad to see you again, Jimmy. I hope you’re better.
    I’m happy to see the Lent post again. Let me start the fight by asking a question: If the Easter Vigil mass ends before midnight (something that seems to be quite common here), may I consider myself to be already in Easter and therefore abandon the fasting and penance, or must I wait for the “official” beginning of Easter Sunday on midnight?
    May you and Tim J. and SDG (or SGD?!), as well as everyone else here have a happy and spiritually fruitful Easter.

  8. Matheus, yes. The Easter triduum begins with the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper (my note: Holy Thursday), reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with evening prayer on Easter Sunday.
    That’s from the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar

  10. Jimmy;
    Has no one ever queried Rome about the Friday penance (all year long) question? I would have thought in all of the years SOMEONE should have asked and received a response.

  11. Thanks for replying, Mary Kay.

    The Easter triduum…reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil…

    I understand that Lent itself only ends on Easter Sunday, but I was thinking that perhaps, on the same way that going to the Easter Vigil on Saturday anticipates the fulfilling of our Sunday obligation, it would also allow us to consider ourselves to be in Easter, for fasting and penance effects at least.
    Or is an Easter Vigil supposed to end only after midnight?

  12. Oops…
    That should be: “…Easter Triduum only ends on Easter Sunday…”, because Lent officially ends with the beginning of the Triduum, isn’t it?

  13. Hey Jimmy, just found your site, love it! I would encourage your readers to check out our take on Lent. Instead of doing something mindless like giving up chocolate, we encourage our readers to do a daily FastPrayGive activity that will help participants understand the true meaning of Lent.
    http://www.bustedhalo.com/features/fast-pray-give/
    Also, our editor-in-chief wrote something for NPR regarding Lent as well.
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101510650

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