Fast

Lent, Lent or Quadragesima is the period beginning on Ash Wednesday in preparation for Easter . Lent is a period of fasting and reflection on actual Christian life practice. Although there are forty-six days elapse between Ash Wednesday and Easter (end of Lent) is traditionally (within the Catholic Church ) does not fasted on the six Sundays during this period, which transports you to forty days. In Eastern Christianity is forty-eight days of fasting until Easter. The week before Easter is no more considered as "Lent", but to the Holy Week .

In the early Christian period they fasted until sundown. Include King David and the prophet Daniel fasted in pre-Christian times already, to God to seek help and support (2 Samuel 12:16; Daniel 9: 3). Even Jesus went immediately after his baptism, fasting forty days (Matthew 4: 2). Around the year 250 this fast was extended to all days of the Holy Week, when the Council of Nicaea in 325 testifies fast of 40 days.

Content

 * 1 Catholic Church
 * 2 Orthodox Church
 * 3 Protestantism
 * 4 See also

Catholic Church
Lent begins for Catholics on Ash Wednesday, when the cross of ashes is administered. The period ends with Easter . Lent lasts a total of 46 days; 40 days of fasting, only the six Sundays is not fasting. [1] Fasting is preceded by the Shrove Tuesday and the carnival . The Church has relaxed the rules on fasting in the course of centuries. In the 9th century the only meal they shifted from sunset to 3 hours, from the 14th century to the afternoon.

According to the precepts of the Catholic Church should Catholics from 14 years on Fridays and some other days, like Ash Wednesday, refrain from the use of meat or another food according to the provisions of the Episcopal Conference (abstinence commandment). The new Code of Canon Law of 1983 (canons 1249 t / m 1253) the abstinence commandment remains virtually unchanged: on Fridays and Ash Wednesday. Abstinence along with fasting prompts on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (fixed commandment). Minors and sixties benefit from a solid command. The Bishops' Conferences have the power to maintain fasting and abstinence to be determined and other forms of penance such as charity work and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, in the place of fasting and abstinence. [2] So given that the Dutch Conference of Bishops in 1989: The Catholic Church has become less strict in the course of centuries in the prescription of fasting and has also proposed alternative forms of fasting and abstinence.

The arrangement with fasting is as follows: Also, there are the so-called ember days, to be launched each of the four seasons of the year.
 * Fine days: every Friday throughout the year, and the whole of Lent (ie from Ash Wednesday till Holy Saturday ).
 * Abstinence days: Ash Wednesday and every Friday throughout the year (including Good Friday), unless it coincides with a solemnity .
 * Fixed days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday .

The various Sundays of Lent have a specific name. The first five Sundays derive their name from the opening words of the introïtusgezang : Jesus cast a demon out: detail of thehunger cloth from the Cathedral of Gurk Austria Last week, the Holy Week, is the culmination of Lent. This week it is, together with the Easter Triduum the absolute center of the liturgical year. The Triduum Sacrumincludes the days Maundy Thursday , Good Friday and Holy Saturday . Traditionally, these days even more strongly to the prayer dedicated. There is also a tradition to these days in retreat to spend.
 * First Sunday: Quadragesima Sunday
 * Second Sunday: Reminiscere
 * Third Sunday: Oculi
 * Fourth Sunday: Laetare ( mid-Lent )
 * Fifth Sunday: Judica
 * Sixth Sunday: Palm Sunday (Dominica in Palmis)

The fast is the liturgical period of two and a half weeks prior to Ash Wednesday. Also this period, a fine character, albeit milder than Lent. In adapting the liturgical calendar after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) were the three Sundays of Lent for ( Septuagesima , Sexagesima and Sunday before Lent ) derecognized and replaced by ordinary Sundays throughout the year. Catholics that the Tridentine liturgy followed with the corresponding liturgical calendar, celebrate this Sunday still.

During Lent, a fasting or formerly in the church hunger cloth suspended between the nave and the chancel of the covering of the altar . This use has been restored in some churches in honor, the canvas shows usually images of poverty in developing countries . Between Ash Wednesday and Easter the Catholic Church in the Netherlands performs a joint Vastenaktie campaign, a period during which reduces recruits for another and money for projects in developing countries.

Orthodox Church [ edit ]
Fixed Days: Fasts: Holy Week (Holy Week) and the weekend before Easter tw Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday are not counted, so the Great Lent still leads to a length of 40 days.
 * Every Wednesday and Friday - except during the 'FULL WEEKS (continuous weeks) and the Holy Days.
 * The day before Theophany 5 (18) January
 * The day of the beheading of John the Baptist and precursor August 29 (September 11).
 * The day of the Exaltation of 14 (27) September
 * The "Great Lent" - duration: 40 days beginning: Monday, 7 weeks before Easter.

The various Sundays of Lent have its own theme: The other fixed periods: FULL interrupted WEEKS (feasts without fasting or abstinence) According to the church's rules on Christmas and Theophany, when falling on Wednesday or Friday, not fasting. On the eve of Christmas and Theophany and allowed on the feast of the Exaltation and the Beheading of John the Forerunner is a meal with vegetable oil. On the feasts of the Meeting of Jesus Christ in the Temple, Transfiguration, the Dormition of the Mother of God, the Nativity of the Mother of God, the Temple Corridor of the Theotokos, the Nativity of John the Forerunner and Baptist, the apostles Peter and Paul and John the Theologian, as falling on Wednesday or Friday, and in the period from Easter to Pentecost is allowed on Wednesdays and Fridays fish.
 * First Sunday: Triumph of Orthodoxy
 * Second Sunday: Saint Gregory Palamas
 * Third Sunday: Holy Cross
 * Fourth Sunday: Saint John Climacus
 * Fifth Sunday: Mary of Egypt
 * The "Christmas Lent" (Philip Fasting) - duration: 40 days, 15 (28) November / 24 December (January 6). (Pass during the Roman Catholic Advent.)
 * The Mother of God-Fasting (Dormition Fast) - duration: 14 days, from 1 / m August 14th.
 * The "Apostle Fasting" (Petrus & Paulus Fasting) - duration: variable (several weeks), Monday after All Saints t / m June 29 (July 11).
 * Christmas Time (The Holy Days) (Christmas time fees until Theophany) December 25 (January 7) - 5 (18): January
 * For the first week of Lent From the Sunday of the Pharisee (The week of the Publican and the Pharisee) (10th week before Easter)
 * Butter Week
 * Easter Week (Light Week) - Easter Sunday - Thomas Sunday
 * Whit week - Pentecost - All Saints (Sunday after Pentecost)

Btw data according to the Julian calendar .

[Protestantism edit ]
Within Protestantism there is no explicit joint tradition of Lent. However, there are individual Protestants who fast in the 40 days before Easter. On an individual basis or in small groups will be asked by some Protestants elsewhere fasted in the year. The precise content of fasting is not clearly defined. There are people who do not eat for several days in succession at all, while others abstain from a certain habit, like smoking, watch TV or drink alcohol.

The founders of Reformed Protestantism did have an eye for a good solid practice. Calvin dedicates his great work the institution several paragraphs to the practice of fasting. Voetius goes in his great work on the godliness in detail the actual fasting believers. However, this fasting is associated with penance, for example around biddagen and not in the period of forty days before Easter. Protestant Christianity in the 21st century, this practice largely lost.