Comments on: Lent and Easter Seasons

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:25:27 +0000

I have to admit, I dont come from a liturgical tradition, and while I admire and respect the richness that these ancient traditions bring to the worldwide church, I am personally pretty ignorant of them, and make the usual postmodern hash up of picking up bits here and pieces there, so hence my questioning. If anyone can furnish the graph with suitable labels, I would be really interested. Thanks lots!!

By: Amy Bowen

Amy Bowen — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:43:03 +0000

Oh. I didn’t know that. Personally, I’ve always given things up for Lent starting when I wake up on Ash Wednesday and ending whenever the Easter Vigil service ends. (The liturgy for said service does contain the phrase “now that our Lenten observance is ended,” which I always thought meant it ended right then. I guess it doesn’t have to mean that, though – it could mean that it ended on the previous Saturday (the one before Palm Sunday). Hmm.

By: Andrew Parkinson

Andrew Parkinson — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:19:19 +0000

In the Anglican Calendar it is fairly clear that Lent ends on the day before Palm Sunday for Holy Week is now Passiontide with a different liturgical colour. Lent isn’t just to prepare for Easter, but to prepare for the whole journey through the Passion to the Resurrection.

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:55:14 +0000

I would be surprised that someone who has been following a Lenten discipline, say of fasting, would stop at Holy Week – the very week in which most Christians are intensifying their preparations, not relaxing from them. What do you think?

As to which traditions could be placed as titles over the various columns above, that is a wonderful suggestion. I suspect it requires significant research, but possibly a reader here can help towards developing the above grid in that manner further.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:35:54 +0000

Hi Bosco, thanks for that – no it probably doesnt make any real difference, but I am always hesitant when people ask me about it, because I simply want to be able to give a straightforward answer – always a vain hope!

So this year I had someone ask me about Lenten fasting, should it go from the beginning of Lent until Easter Sunday? My answer was that I thought it was up to the individual, but conceivably one might consider Lent to have finished when Holy Week begins.

I suppose the fact that we celebrate Easter according to one calendar and not the other, ought perhaps to suggest we would harmonise all our dates accordingly? I dont know, just a ponder…

Perhaps you could help me a little further by just telling me what labels you are putting at the top of each column (which tradition(s) is/are represented by which column?

Thanks, it’s very interesting! I particularly like the note about 40 days being an approximate tithe of a year, never realised that before!

Simon

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:59:48 +0000

Although we might like to tidy up our inherited liturgical traditions, in actual fact what we have is often several traditions running together and occasionally appearing to conflict. So, Simon, your question is a search for a single tradition, but this chart is showing there are actually three traditions of the 40 day Lent interwoven. So to “when exactly does Lent end?” one may get different answers. I guess at its simplest one might say – Lent prepares for Easter, so Lent ends when Easter begins. I’m not sure that the fine details make any real difference – can you suggest any where it might?

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:06:40 +0000

This is great, but I’m still a little bit confused by the different columns/options that appear – so can you just confirm for me, when does Lent end? Is Lent the 40 days until Holy week? Do we have Lent, then a week, then the Easter weekend, then fifty days until Pentecost? Just me being thick probably…

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:53:33 +0000

I’ve received very positive comments about the chart – but one is confused about the blank boxes. Good point.
The chart comes out of the realisation that our liturgical year has grown out of different traditions conflated together. If you start filling in the blank boxes you generally will end up with relatively meaningless numbers. The numbers in the boxes indicate different ways that some people have, and others still do, calculate and/or explain the seasons.