The 47 Days of Lent?

[carol_marie]

I thought Lent was 40 days… but Ash Wednesday until Easter is actually 47 days. Now I’m

 

[Tonks40]

carol marie:

I thought Lent was 40 days… but Ash Wednesday until Easter is actually 47 days. Now I’m

Lent actually ends on Palm Sunday, so…well, I can’t do the math off-hand…

…oh, ok! So, the Saturday before Palm Sunday is 40 days!

See, I went to school…

 

[LilyM]

I believe the Sundays of Lent aren’t counted, and possibly that Holy Thursday evening thru to Easter Vigil is counted as one ‘day’ (at least liturgically speaking) therefore 40 days.

Lent definitely ends on Easter.

 

[Mike_Dye]

The season of lent ends on Holy Thurs. and a new liturgical season begins, the Tridum. Then remove the Sundays which are not days of lent and you end up with the forty days.

 

[LilyM]

Well that makes me wrong … won’t be the first or last time I guess.

 

[need_to_know]

I like Jimmy Akin’s view of this:

jimmyakin.org/2004/03/the_length_of_l.html

 

[puzzleannie]

our visiting priest pointed out last week that 40 days is one of those numbers which to the Jews had special significance. The 40 years wandering in the desert signified the passage of an entire generation. 40 days or years is not an exact number, but a period of time necessary for a complete change or conversion from the old to the new, and the time of penance and fasting necessary for conversion, and the emptiness of self required for an encounter with the Divine.

Don’t get hung up on counting the days, that is taking something meant to be symbolic and interpreting it literally. Lent ends after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and the Triduum begins, ending at midnight on Easter Sunday. Sundays are part of Lent, but even when fast and abstinence were the only prescribed penance, Sundays were exempt from those rules. At different peiords of time the length of Lent has varied, the pre-Lenten period, including day for beginning of lent has varied.

 

[chicago]

Musically “forty” just sounds better than trying to sing, “These 47 days of Lent, O Lord.”

 

[carol_marie]

chicago:

Musically “forty” just sounds better than trying to sing, “These 47 days of Lent, O Lord.”

So very true!

Thanks for the responses… I wasn’t really hung up on the # of days… it’s not like I was thinking that I discovered this big discrepency that everyone else had overlooked… granted, I’m smart… but not that smart!

 

[Little_Mary]

Ditto on previous posts - don’t count Sundays, and I think you don;t count Ash Wed or Good Fri either. At any rate, it’s the time frame, not # of days.

Counting the days 'til you can go back to drinking and debauchery, eh?? Just kidding!!

 

[JoeMike]

I just counted the days on a calendar.

Starting with Ash Wednesday as Day 1, and excluding Sundays, the 40th day of Lent is Saturday, April 15, the day before Easter Sunday.

 

[Genesis315]

Sundays are Feast Days meaning you can have whatever you gave up for Lent