So what's so special about Lent, anyway?

Lent begins on 9 February. It begins with Ash Wednesday, which always falls in the seventh week before Easter. Lent is widely observed by Christians around the world as a time of fasting or meditation. Why 'Ash Wednesday'? What do ashes have to do with anything? This goes right back to the Old Testament custom of putting ashes on one's face or clothing as a symbol of repentance or remorse. (e.g. Esther 4.1; Jeremiah 6.26). When the early Church began to observe Lent as a period of preparation for Easter, repentance and remorse played a key part. Therefore the wearing of ashes was adopted as a proper external sign of this inward attitude of remorse or repentance.

So the early Christians, especially during the Middle Ages, used the first day of Lent to impose ashes on the heads of the clergy and the people. Nowadays, these ashes come from the burning of the palm crosses that were handed out on Palm Sunday during the previous year's Lent.

Some churches continue this theme of repentance by the symbolic use of purple clerical dress during Lent.

What about the custom of giving up things for Lent? In the past, Lent was a time for fasting, because it is based on the period of 40 days spent by Jesus in the wilderness before the beginning of his public ministry in Galilee. Jesus fasted for 40 days, and so his followers were encouraged to do the same thing. The early Church recommended a fast of two or three days, but by the fourth century, people were encouraged to fast for the full 40 days.

The precise nature of this 'fasting' varied. In general, the western church understood 'fasting' as a reduced intake of food, and eating fish rather than meat. It encouraged Christians to spend time in devotional reading or attendance at church rather than fasting.

But what about the length of Lent? The numerically able reader will have worked out by now that the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Day is actually 46 days. So why not the 40 days that Jesus fasted? Again, we go back to early church tradition. In the early Church, every Sunday was regarded as a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. So fasting was forbidden on a Sunday! So the period of 46 days thus consists of 40 days of fasting, plus the six Sundays which fall between Ash Wednesday and Easter Day.

Finally, just before Ash Wednesday, we have Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday. This custom comes from the many thousands of Christian housewives down the centuries who cleared out their larders immediately before the fast of Lent. The simplest way of using up all their eggs, flour and milk was to make pancakes. In some countries the day is known as Mardi Gras, and is marked by major carnivals; most famously in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.