Tag: Ash Wednesday

Rather than just comment upon the Collect, Epistle & Gospel readings for First Sunday in Lent in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, I take this opportunity to offer some insight into how and why the season of Lent came into the Christian worship cycle. Lent is one of the Church’s two seasons of penitence, the other being Advent. In the Eastern Church tradition, Lent is called “Great Lent.”

Like “Epiphany” and the “Gesima” Sundays which come immediately before the start of Lent, the name Lent is not a Scriptural term, that is, you will not find it in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Old or New Testaments. It is derived from two different sources, the Old English “Lenten” and the old High German “Lenz,” noting also that there are similar words in other European languages, including Dutch, Italian and Spanish. Lent is the preferred English title instead of the Latin “Quadragesima,” which means “Forty Days” or the Greek “Tessakoste,” or “fortieth day.” All these terms refer to a day which is forty days before Easter or to the Forty Days themselves. The number 40 appears in the Gospel reading for the First Sunday in Lent.

Numerology, or the symbolism of numbers, has always been present in Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. In the three Synoptic Gospel accounts Christ fasted for forty days in the Wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). Old Testament examples of forty “days” include Moses on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:18); Elijah’s journey on foot to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:18); days (and nights) of rain while Noah guided the Ark (Genesis 7:4); and the period of repentance specified by Jonah to the residents of Nineveh (Jonah 3:4). Expressed in “Years” is the number of years of the exile of the Hebrew people in the wilderness of Sinai (Numbers 14:33).

There is no agreement among historians or Church officials as to when Lent came into the Church’s cycle of worship; however, since the season is based upon the date of Easter, it seems logical to assume that Lent came about after the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D., when a formula for determining the date of Easter was decided upon. Some historians believe that St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397 A.D.) and those who followed his example in the late 4th C. Others give some credit to Pope Leo the Great (circa 400-440 A.D.). As noted in the post for Ash Wednesday, Pope Gregory the Great (Pope from 590 to 604 A.D.) officially designated Ash Wednesday as the start of Lent in response to Eastern Church criticism that the Western Church did not have a full 40-day season of Lent. In the Roman Catholic practice, Sundays could not be fasting days, causing the dispute with the Eastern Church. Thus the season of Lent in the Western Church as 46 calendar days and 40 fasting days.

In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the Collect for Ash Wednesday must also be read on all Sundays in Lent until Palm Sunday (Sixth Sunday in Lent). Both Collects are shown below. The first, the Ash Wednesday Collect, was adapted by Archbishop Cranmer from the Sarum Rite service then in use in England. The second collect, for First Sunday in Lent, is an original composition for Lent by Archbishop Cranmer for the 1549 Book of Common Prayer based upon Ephesians 4:22-24.

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou has made.
and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent;
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we,
worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights;
Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit,
we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness,
to thy honor and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost,
one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle reading, 2 Corinthians 6:1-10, like many of the readings during the “Gesima” Sundays, emphasizes the Christian virtues. St. Paul emphasizes the value of patience, which is also called steadfastness, in all things. Verses 6-10 includes specific areas in which patience is important. In verse 2, he uses Isaiah 49:8, to claim that “the day of salvation” is now, meaning it is ever-present in the unknown time before Christ comes again. He emphasizes the power of God over all forms of adversity which the faithful may encounter. The secular world’s hostility to Christianity is the continuing subject of our video series, The War on Christianity, with episodes linked from the Digital Library page.

The Gospel reading, Matthew 4:1-11, is the evangelist’s account of the three temptations of Christ, in which Jesus calls the Devil by his given name, Satan. Satan uses Old Testament sources for imagery: Deuteronony 8:3 (stone into bread), Deuteronomy 6:13 (worship Satan instead of God) and Psalm 91:11, 12 (Guardian Angel). One of the most famous and revered hymns for Lent is Forty Day and Forty Nights (tune: Heinlein/Aus der Tier rufe Ich). My Podcast Homily for First Sunday in Lent is available using links on the Podcast Homilies page. The image above appears in a high-resolution version as Illustration No. 42 in The Gospel of Luke: Annotated & Illustrated, available through my Amazon Author Central page. Another illustration of the temptations, presented in a different order, in a 17th C. Russian Orthodox icon, was used in Episode Two in our video series, Lent: the Season of Penitence. Episodes are linked from the Digital Library page.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!