I didn’t realize lent didn’t include Sundays

[BlackCatSleeping]

Did everyone else know this?

I always thought it was 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Maudlin Thursday, but apparently it’s 46 days because you don’t count the Sundays and so whatever you gave up for lent, you can have on sundays as Sunday is considered a feast day.

So, now I am counting down until Sunday for chocolate.

I guess that modern people are doing the whole time as they're using it as a 'diet' of some kind rather than religious observance?

I think that's probably right.

sashh, I don't know that it's necessarily an English thing, but I remember only knowing it from English novels -- we certainly never made it or ate it in my house when I was a child, and I don't remember seeing it in shops then. That may have changed since, obviously.

I wasn't taught about the no food before mass thing because it went out in the 1960s

We were certainly still fasting from midnight the night before mass when I was a child in the 1970s and 80s. That was in canon law until the 50s, when it changed to a three hour fast, then in 1964, it changed to one hour's fast before mass, and canon law still stipulates that hour's fast as a minimum.

In some areas of the Netherlands they celebrate halfway through with more drinking and carnival processions.

All you ever wanted to know about (Catholic) Lent

TL;DR Why are Sundays excluded from the reckoning of the forty days?

A: Because Sunday is the day on which Christ arose, making it an inappropriate day to fast and mourn our sins. On Sunday we must celebrate Christ's resurrection for our salvation. It is Friday on which we commemorate his death for our sins. The Sundays of the year are days of celebration and the Fridays of the year are days of penance.

It certainly is maudlin after 40 days with no chocolate.

😂

An hour before mass is still a thing. I had a friend who was a very devout Catholic but he was also a big fan of food and he would say an hour before communion which is obviously not at the start of the mass. Also being late for mass is okay if you get there before the gospel? What is the official line (CofE and Catholic) on what you give up for Lent or is it up to the individual? The Eastern churches maintain the old rules about no animal products and sometimes no oil on certain days.

Sundays are days of rest/abstinence anyway.

See, what I read was that Sundays are actually a day of feasting, hence why we traditionally eat a large roast dinner on Sundays.

I'm not remotely religious. I just thought it was interesting. I always thought you could work out Pancake day by counting 40 days back from Easter and vice versa. Turns out I was wrong.

The Sundays of the year are days of celebration and the Fridays of the year are days of penance.

Ah, so fish on Fridays and roast dinners on Sundays. It's all making sense to me now.

I didn't use to know it but learnt about it at university. It's because from a Christian perspective Sundays are seen as feast days

Certainly in the Catholic Church I endured as a child, there were no Sunday's off in Lent. I believe that Sundays are definitely included in the count of days in the Lenten season and are an integral part of the Lenten liturgy - even if that means the days don't exactly add up to 40.

According to Universal Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar:

28. The forty days of Lent run from Ash Wednesday up to but excluding the Mass of the Lord’s Supper exclusive....

29. The Sundays of this time of year are called the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent. The Sixth Sunday, on which Holy Week begins, is called, “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord”....

The liturgy of the Sundays of Lent is the base of all the Lenten liturgy building up to Holy Week.

Also, if you are going to all the bother of observing Lent, doing your own personal penance and all that - why would you think - oh, I'll take Sunday (the day of the week when I go to mass / church to celebrate and share my faith) off?

I'm not religious anymore - but the logic of Sundays off in Lent seems very flawed to me (but then a lot of religious logic is a bit off, so maybe none of it matters?!).

If Lent is commemorating Jesus' time in the wilderness, why does it extend to Either Maundy Thursday or Easter Sunday? Jesus came out of the wilderness and came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which is 40 days after Ash Wednesday, as a pp said.

If Lent is commemorating Jesus' time in the wilderness, why does it extend to Either Maundy Thursday or Easter Sunday? Jesus came out of the wilderness and came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which is 40 days after Ash Wednesday, as a pp said.

40 days doesn't include Sundays. So ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday is 40 days if you discount the Sundays. Sundays are feast days and as such one shouldn't fast but instead be celebrating and worshipping God (looking at it from a purely Christian perspective not secular obviously)

Yes, but Jesus wasn't actually in the wilderness after Palm Sunday, was he? So if you are actually 'sharing his sorrow' as we used to sing at school*, it should be for the 40 days back from Palm Sunday

*Forty days and forty nights
Thou wast fasting in the wild;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled.

Sunbeams scorching all the day;
Chilly dew-drops nightly shed;
Prowling beasts about Thy way;
Stones Thy pillow; earth Thy bed.

Should not we Thy sorrow share
And from worldly joys abstain,
Fasting with unceasing prayer,
Strong with Thee to suffer pain?
...

It's 50 years since I left my church school, but I can still sing it, along with 'There is a green hill far away'. Hymns were the only thing I liked about church.

@RustyBear it's symbolic of the 40 days rather than following the specific 40 days he was in the wilderness for.

Maybe this is a question for the Religion and Philosopy board.

Also when He came to Jerusalem He wasn't exactly having a week-long party until He was tortured and crucified... It would be inappropriate to give up your Lenten penances during Holy Week.

According to what I was taught (Anglocatholic), Random is right and Mothering Sunday (more properly Laetare Sunday) is the day you can relax a Lenten fast. Similarly Gaudete Sunday in Advent (the pink candle on the advent wreath). The only two days in the year when the vicar wore his very fetching rose pink chasuble.

I've just checked because my Bible knowledge isn't great - Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before the beginning of His public ministry, not before Palm Sunday. So that theory doesn't hold up - it's still Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday, not including Sundays as they are first class feasts (other first class feasts during Lent like the Solemnity of St Joseph on March 19 or St Patrick if you're in Ireland can also be included).

@SarahH12 - thanks, I might try that, though currently I've been distracted into trying to find a recording of the tune I remember for '40 days and 40 nights' on YouTube - I can only find the old traditional one & we sang a more modern version.