What is Lent?

Date: 21 February 2007 22:07:29

For what is Lent, in its original institution, but a spiritual conflict, to subdue the flesh to the spirit, to beat down our bodies, and to bring them into subjection? What is it, but a penitential martyrdom for so many weeks together, which we suffer for our own and other sins? A devout soul, that is duly able to observe it, fastens himself to the cross on Ash Wednesday, and hangs crucfied by contrition all the Lent long; that having felt in his closet, the burthen and the anguish, the nails and the thorns, and tasted the gall of his own sins, he may by his own crucifixion be better disposed to be crucified with Christ on Good Friday, and most tenderly sympathize with all the dolours, and pressures, and anguish, and torments, and desertion, infinite, unknown, and unspeakable, which God incarnate endured, when he bled upon the cross for the sins of the world; that being purified by repentance, and made conformable to Christ crucified; he may offer up a pure oblation at Easter, and feel the power and the joys, and the triumph of his Saviour's resurrection. And to encourage you to such a devotion, thus enforced with fasting, and mourning, and alms, as was this of Daniel, reflect on the wonderful success he found; for when he began his supplications, the angel Gabriel was sent to him by God, and arrived before he had ended them; and by that heavenly messenger, God then honoured him with that glorious prophecy of the seventy weeks.

Thomas Ken (1637-1711)
From Love's Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness p240. Compiled by Rowell, Stevenson & Williams (OUP, 2001)