Lent: what’s it all about?

On Wednesday many people came to Mass to be marked with ashes as the season of Lent began. It is one of the rituals which non-Catholics find it hardest to understand, yet among Catholics the world over it retains a great deal of popularity. What does it mean, and what can it teach us about this season of Lent?
The use of ashes reminds us of our mortality; one form of words which can be used by the priest says simply, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” When we are reminded that life on earth must come to an end, we are also encouraged to think of how we can prepare for what comes after.
This is ultimately what Lent is all about. One of the hymns for Lent, ‘Forty days and forty nights’, includes the line, “Keep, O keep us, Saviour dear, ever constant by Thy side, that with Thee we may appear at the eternal Eastertide.” This one line expresses our hope and teaches us how to achieve it. Our hope – expressed in the fifty-day celebration of Easter – is that the resurrection of the Lord may bring us to eternal life with Him in heaven. We can reach this goal by staying close to Him in our earthly life.
So many of the things we do in Lent are designed to keep us close to the Lord in this life. We might even say that the whole season is about living life with Him. Lent is 40 days of prayer and fasting; in this time we live with the Lord in His 40 days of fasting and prayer in the wilderness, the very events that we hear about in today’s Gospel. During this time the Lord was greatly tempted by Satan; in living with Him this Lent we try to do as He did – to resist the temptation to sin and so to be close to God.
Prayer and fasting, then, are means by which we can resist temptation. Prayer asks for God’s assistance in our struggles, and fasting trains us to be able to say ‘no’ to our desires. Almsgiving (acts of charity) – the third characteristic of Lent – is a means by whichwe show love for others and, therefore, show repentance for our sins.