The Observance of Lent

THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

ASHE WEDNESDAY:  THE OBSERVANCE OF A HOLY LENT

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for tehm by a season of penitence and fasting.  This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.  It was also a time when those, who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and retored to the fellowship of the Church.  Therefore, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon, and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentence; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.  ..... 

THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT (RB)

CHAPTER XLIX  THE OBSERVANCE OF LENT

Although the monk's life ought at all seasons to bear a Lenten character such strength is found only in a few.  Therefore we urge the brethren to keep the days of Lent with a special purity of life and also at this holy season to make reparation for the failings of other times.  This reparation will be worthily performed if we guard ourselves from all our faults and apply ourselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to compuction of heart and to abstinence.  Therefore at this season let us increase in some way the normal standard of our service, as for example, by special prayers, or by a diminution in food and drink; and so let each one spontaneously in the joy of the Holy Spirit make some offering to God concerning the allowance granted him.  Thus he may reduce food and drink for his body, or his sleep, or his talkativeness or his looseness in speech, and so with the joy of spiritual desire, look forward to holy Easter.

But every brother should propose to the Abbot whatever he intends to offer, and it shouild be performed with his blessing and approval.  For anything done without the permission of the spiritual father will be put down to presumption and vainglory, and desriving no reward.  Everything, therefore, must be carried out with the approval of the Abbot.