What is Lent? The meaning of the forty days, and how to keep them
Lent 2027 begins on Ash Wednesday, February 10. Why it lasts forty days, what prayer, fasting and almsgiving look like in an ordinary week, and the verses that carry the season.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 9 min read
For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.
From Genesis 3:19 · BSB
So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God
From Joel 2:13 · BSB
Lent is the season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in which Christians prepare for Easter: forty days that echo the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness. In 2027 it begins on Ash Wednesday, Wednesday, February 10, and leads to Easter Sunday, Sunday, March 28.
The English name has nothing churchy about it. “Lent” comes from the Old English lencten, the spring season, when the days grow longer. Latin calls the season Quadragesima, “the fortieth.” Both names fit. Lent is a slow walk out of winter, and it is counted.
Below: what the season is for, where the forty days come from, the dates for the coming year, the three old practices at its heart, and small ideas that work in a real week.
What Lent is for
Forty days of getting ready
Easter is the oldest and greatest feast of the Christian year, and the Church has never wanted anyone to arrive at it unprepared. Lent is the preparation. In the early centuries it was, among other things, the last stretch of preparation for adults to be baptized at Easter, and the whole church fasted and prayed with them. By 339, Athanasius of Alexandria could write that a forty-day fast before Easter was kept across the Christian world.
The aim has not changed. Lent is not a self-improvement program with a religious label. It is a season of turning back to God and clearing away what crowds him out.
Why forty days
Matthew 4:1–2
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
Matthew 4:1–2 · BSB
Before he preached a single sermon, Jesus went into the wilderness and fasted for forty days. Lent copies his forty, and his forty echoes older ones: Moses on Sinai for forty days and forty nights, where the Ten Commandments were written on the tablets, and Elijah walking forty days and forty nights to Horeb on the strength of the food an angel gave him. In Scripture, forty is the length of a testing that ends in meeting God.
Notice who leads Jesus there. The wilderness was not a punishment. He was led into it by the Spirit, and he came out of it ready.
On the calendar
Lent 2027: the dates
- Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras): Tuesday, February 9, the last day before the fast
- Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent: Wednesday, February 10
- First Sunday of Lent: February 14
- Laetare Sunday, the fourth: March 7
- Palm Sunday: March 21
- Holy Thursday: March 25
- Good Friday: March 26
- Easter Sunday: Sunday, March 28
Why does Ash Wednesday fall 46 days before Easter, not 40? Every Sunday celebrates the Resurrection, so the six Sundays of Lent are not fast days. Forty fast days plus six Sundays makes 46. In the Catholic Church, Lent ends on the evening of Holy Thursday (March 25); many Protestant churches count it to Holy Saturday (March 27). Orthodox Great Lent starts later this year, on Clean Monday, March 15. The Ash Wednesday page lists the dates for the next ten years.
Ash Wednesday
From Genesis 3:19
For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.
From Genesis 3:19 · BSB
On the first day of Lent, a minister traces a cross of ashes on your forehead, usually with these words from Genesis or with Jesus’ first preaching in Mark 1:15, “Repent and believe in the gospel!” The ashes are often made by burning the palms from last year’s Palm Sunday.
It sounds grim, and it is meant to be honest. You will die. Your plans are smaller than God. Yet the mark is a cross, not a smudge, and the season it opens ends at an empty tomb.
The call of the season
From Joel 2:13
So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God
From Joel 2:13 · BSB
Joel’s words are read on Ash Wednesday in Catholic churches and many others. In his day, tearing your clothes was the public sign of grief and repentance. God asks for something harder to fake: a torn heart. The rest of the verse gives the reason to come back at all. He is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.”
The first practice: prayer
Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:6 · BSB
The Gospel for Ash Wednesday is Matthew 6, where Jesus takes the three practices his hearers already knew, giving, praying and fasting, and moves each one out of public view. Christians have called them the three pillars of Lent ever since.
Prayer comes first because the other two make no sense without it. A shut door, ten quiet minutes, a psalm read slowly: Lent asks for nothing more heroic than that, every day, for six weeks.
The second practice: fasting
Matthew 6:17–18
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be obvious to men, but only to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:17–18 · BSB
Fasting is not dieting with a halo. Going without leaves a small, daily hunger, and each time you feel it you can turn it into prayer. Jesus assumes his followers will fast; he only asks them to keep it quiet.
For Catholics, the rules are modest. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting for those aged 18 to 59 (one full meal and two smaller ones that together do not equal it), and days of abstinence from meat for everyone 14 and older. Every Friday in Lent is a day of abstinence too. The sick, and pregnant or nursing women, are excused. Many Protestants choose their own fast, and plenty give up something besides food: social media, complaining, the snooze button.
The third practice: almsgiving
Matthew 6:3–4
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:3–4 · BSB
Almsgiving is the old word for giving to the poor, and it keeps Lent from turning inward. Isaiah 58 says the fast God wants is “to share your bread with the hungry,” and that is the simplest way to join the two: whatever a fast saves, give away. Many parishes hand out small cardboard boxes at the start of Lent for exactly that.
Signs of the season
Violet, a missing Alleluia and one rose Sunday
Walk into a church in Lent and it looks different. The vestments and altar cloths turn violet, the color of repentance and waiting. In the Catholic Church and many others, the Gloria and the Alleluia go silent until Easter, so the first Alleluia of the Easter Vigil sounds like a door thrown open.
Halfway through comes a breather. The fourth Sunday, Laetare Sunday (March 7 in 2027), takes its name from the opening chant, “Rejoice, Jerusalem,” from Isaiah 66:10, and priests may wear rose instead of violet. In Britain and Ireland it is also Mothering Sunday.
Practical ideas
Nine small ways to keep Lent
Choose one or two. A small Lent that is kept beats a grand one dropped in the second week.
- Read one Gospel from start to finish. Mark, the shortest, fits in a few evenings.
- Pray Psalm 51 every morning.
- Give up one thing you reach for without thinking, and pray each time you miss it.
- Eat simply on Fridays and give away what you save.
- Pray the Stations of the Cross on a Friday evening.
- Go to confession, or set aside an evening to examine your conscience honestly.
- Write one letter a week to someone who shaped your faith, or visit someone who is lonely.
- Leave your phone outside the bedroom and pray before sleep instead.
- Keep Sundays as small feasts, the way the Church does.
On your iPhone
Keep Easter in view
Six weeks is long enough to forget why you started. MySavior’s Christian Countdown widget keeps the end in sight: set it to Ash Wednesday before the season starts, then to Easter, and every glance at your Lock Screen tells you how many days are left. Easter is March 28; the Easter countdown page keeps the exact number.
If you choose a verse for the season, like Psalm 51:10 below, the wallpaper maker lets you write it over a photograph and save it as a Lock Screen wallpaper, and Bible verse widgets on your Home Screen change by themselves on a schedule you pick.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Count down to Easter on your Lock ScreenMySavior’s Christian Countdown follows 30 feasts of the year, including Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter.
★ Rated 4.9 on the US App StoreLoved by Christians in 60+ countries8,000+ people every month
A verse for all forty days
Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10 · BSB
Psalm 51 is David’s prayer after his sin with Bathsheba, and the Church prays it on Ash Wednesday. Its center is this verse. David does not ask God to tidy him up. He asks for a new heart, made from nothing, with the same Hebrew verb Genesis uses for creation. That is what Lent hopes for.
To pray on Ash Wednesday
A prayer for the first day of Lent
Lord Jesus, you went into the wilderness for us and came out ready. Lead me through these forty days. Teach me to pray when I would rather be busy, to go without when I would rather have, and to give when I would rather keep. Create in me a clean heart, and bring me to Easter morning glad. Amen.
Pray it on Ash Wednesday, and again whenever your resolutions start to wobble. They will. Lent was never about getting it all right; it is about coming back.
A small practice before Ash Wednesday
Before February 10, sit down for ten minutes with a piece of paper and write three lines: one way you will pray, one thing you will go without, one way you will give. Keep each one small enough to do on a bad day. Put the paper in your Bible at Psalm 51. On each Sunday of Lent, take it out, read it, and ask for grace for the week ahead. On Easter morning, read it one last time and thank God for every day you kept, and for the days you didn’t.
Keep Easter in sight all through Lent
Bible verse and prayer widgets you design yourself, a countdown to the feasts of the year, and a saint for every day.
★ Rated 4.9 on the US App StoreLoved by Christians in 60+ countries8,000+ people every month
Questions
When does Lent start and end in 2027?
Lent 2027 begins on Ash Wednesday, Wednesday, February 10, 2027. In the Catholic Church it ends on the evening of Holy Thursday, March 25; many Protestant churches count it to Holy Saturday, March 27. Easter Sunday is March 28, 2027.
Why is Lent 40 days?
The forty days recall the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–2), which echo Moses’ forty days on Sinai and Elijah’s forty-day walk to Horeb. The six Sundays of Lent are not counted as fast days, so the season runs 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter.
What are the three pillars of Lent?
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving (giving to the poor). They come from Matthew 6, the Gospel read on Ash Wednesday, where Jesus teaches all three and asks that they be done in secret, for the Father who sees in secret.
Do you have to give something up for Lent?
No. Catholics are bound to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and to abstain from meat on the Fridays of Lent; anything beyond that is chosen. Many Christians add something instead: a daily prayer time, a Gospel to read, or regular giving.
Which Bible translation is quoted here?
Every verse in this article is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
