Exploring the roots of a long-standing tradition is not just an academic exercise of delving into the past but understanding the relevance of key concepts for us today.
In the 1st and 2nd centuries, the fast before Easter was compulsory. The whole community kept a 40-hour fast on the Friday and Saturday before Easter Sunday when no food or drink was taken whatsoever. It was seen as emblematic of one’s membership of the Church and the best formative way of ecclesial preparation for the profound experience of grace in the revelation of the Easter Mystery, the Pascha.
The 3rd century saw an extending of this period of preparation to what we now call “Holy Week”. The whole week was marked by fasting but not a complete fast as in the final two days.
Finally, in the 4th century, the tradition of the full 40 days of Lent became a widespread custom and seen as the natural preparation for Easter. The 1st Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD) clearly took a 40-day Lent for granted (cf Canon 5).
Why 40 days?
From the Church’s earliest times a strong spiritual movement sprang up, based on union or solidarity with Christ in every aspect of the Paschal Mystery. It became the custom to synchronise the daily round of prayer to correspond with the times of the various events of his Passion and Death, as the writings of the Fathers show. In this same spirit of union with Christ, the early monks relived his forty days in the wilderness through fasting, penance and prayer. Outside monastic circles, this rapidly spread throughout the Church as a central theme in preparing for Easter.
In biblical tradition, “forty” corresponds to the span of a human generation (40 years) and so is used to express completion or fulfillment. Because of the corruption of humanity, rain inundated the earth for forty days, annihilating every living being, except Noah and his family (Gen 6-8) and a new world emerged. Escaping from Egypt, Moses and his band of people wandered for forty years until they became the Chosen People with whom God at last made the Covenant which had been promised to Abraham (Exodus 34).
Finally, the Word of God became flesh and blood in the person of Jesus (Jn 1: 14). He was truly human, “tempted in every way that we are, though he is without sin” (Heb 4:15). Anointed by the Spirit of God, he embraced Messiahship with all its implications and immediately that same Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness and he remained there for forty days and was tempted by Satan: (Mk 1: 12-13; Mt 4:2; Lk 4: 1-2). This was the sign that the incarnation was completely fulfilled, and the divine Son of God was truly one of us in the deepest sense, the complete model of our human nature. Our Lent, then, is a time for us “to be moulded by God to the pattern of his Son” (cf Rom 8: 29).
by Virginia Ryan
