What is lent?
Is there book, chapter, verses for such?
As for your initial question:
The Holy Spirit tells us through the writings of men inspired of God's Spirit:
1 Timothy 4:1.
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
OLLIE THE PROBLEM WITH THAT THOUGHT IS PEOPLE THAT OBSERVE LENT , HAVE LONG BEFORE NOW. SO YOUR SAYING THE END TIMES ARE AS OLD AS THE CREATION OF THE LENTAL SEASON?
2. Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
NOT SURE OF WHAT THE LIE IS?
3. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
PEOPLE WHOM ABSTAIN FROM MEAT ON FRIDAYS ARE DOING IT OUT OF CHOICE NOT , FROM SOME COMAND, ITS A OBSERVANCE AND RECPECT FOR JESUS. LIKE JEWISH PRACTICES.
4. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
THE MEAT ISNT BEING REFUSED JUST EATING PIZZA TONIGHT,COOKING THAT BURGER ON MY NEW GRILL I JUST BOUGHT TOMORROW
5. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.P.S BY THE WAY FOR THE RECORD I HAD KFC LAST NIGHT SOMEONE PUT IT IN MY HEAD IN THE ABORTION THREAD, HAD TO HAVE IT
THIS IS LONG BUT JUST IN CASE YOU REALY WANTED TO KNOW..................
#The Purpose of Lent
What is Lent all about? It is forty days of preparation for the fruitful, joyful celebration of the Paschal Mystery - the mystery of our Lord’s passion, death, resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate this mystery in a most intense way on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. On these three days we concentrate our full attention on our Lord’s suffering, crucifixion and resurrection. Next, we celebrate the fifty days of Easter time, during which we absorb and enjoy the wonderful blessings gained for us by Jesus by His Paschal Mystery.
How can we ensure that we will experience these blessings to the full, and overflow with the Easter joy? By preparing well for Easter by making a very good Lent. We will enjoy all the blessings of the Paschal Mystery to the degree that we enter into the mystery, absorb it into our lives, live it fully, and let it produce its full effects in us, the abundant fruits of the Holy Spirit.
But how do we do this, how do we enter into the mystery?
We entered into the Paschal Mystery when we were baptized. In baptism, we were united to Christ in His death and resurrection. St. Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.… The death He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:3-4; 10-11).”
In baptism, St. Peter tells us, we made a pledge to God to live that way: dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus. We solemnly promised God that we would live henceforth according to a pure conscience.
Unfortunately, we have not always kept this solemn pledge of baptism. Therefore, in the Easter Vigil or on Easter Sunday, we will solemnly renew our baptismal promises. Now we see what Lent is all about. It is forty days of preparation to renew and deepen our baptismal gift of self to our risen Lord, who
died and rose again, so that we might live, no longer for ourselves, but for Him who died for us and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15).
Everything we do during Lent should be geared towards our renewal of our baptismal gift of self to our crucified and risen Lord. The renewal of our baptismal vows at Easter should be so sincere, with such deep understanding and such heartfelt and intense devotion, that this renewal will profoundly affect our whole future life, and bring us deep joy and fervent devotion throughout the Easter season.
Lent, then, is forty days preparing our hearts for this deeper insight into our baptismal responsibilities, and for a wholehearted rededication of self to these responsibilities.
Each day during Lent we should be practicing, rehearsing for that solemn renewal of our baptismal promises at Easter. But this rehearsing is not just play-acting, this rehearsing will be most effective if each day we do renew our promise to God to live, not for self, but for Him, who died and rose for us.
For example, each day of Lent we might ask ourselves: What did today’s readings at Mass say to me about repentance, or renewal, or rededication? Did the readings invite me to pray more sincerely? Did I therefore try to pray better today?
Did the readings exhort me to undo my selfish sinfulness by a more generous love and response to the needy people around me? Did I therefore go out of my way to visit the sick, the elderly, the prisoners?
Did the reading call upon me to stop treating others unjustly? Did I therefore make reparation for my sins against others? Did I repair the harm I did to them? Did I restore what I had stolen from them? Did I seek their forgiveness, and achieve reconciliation with them?
These are the sort of things we do in Lent. It is my baptismal responsibility to do all these things. At baptism, I made a pledge to God that I would do them.
In today’s liturgy, the first Sunday of Lent, we read about the pledge God made to me and to all His creatures in the covenant He made with Noah. And He put the rainbow in the sky as the reminder of that pledge, that never again would he destroy all creatures in a punishing flood. He promised His everlasting mercy to all creation. Genesis 9:8-15.
God fulfilled that pledge made in Noah’s time by sending His Son to die for our sins, so that He might spare and renew His whole creation.
We enter into that covenant which God made with Noah and receive its blessings only by entering into the new and eternal covenant which God made with us in the blood of Jesus His Son.
We do this in baptism. St. Peter tells us in today’s reading that the saving of Noah and his family through water in the ark prefigured our being saved by our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. Peter says that our baptism was our pledge to God that we would live according to a purified conscience. Peter says that our baptism was “...not a removal of dirt from our bodies, but a pledge to God from a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
This Pledge of ours was our response to God’s pledge that he would not destroy His creations because of our sinfulness.
Let us reflect more fully on Peter’s words about our Baptism as a solemn pledge to God.
In other words, our baptismal pledge was a grateful response to God’s pledge to us, a response to God who has purified our consciences in the blood of His crucified and risen Son, our Lord. If Jesus gave Himself totally for us on the cross, how can we fail to make a return? As St. Paul says, Christ “…died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for them (2 Cor. 5:15).”
In baptism, then, from a conscience purified of sin in the blood of Christ we make a solemn pledge to live for God alone. And we pledge that we will keep that conscience ever pure.
We pledge to God that we will see to it that our conscience is rightly formed, and reformed when necessary, by attentiveness to God’s word.
Unfortunately, we have not always kept our solemn pledge, so God has provided us with the Lenten season as a time of preparation for our solemn renewal of our pledge in the Easter liturgy.
To make a good Lent, then, it is not enough to find a Lenten practice or two which we will observe during this holy season. But more than that, whichever Lenten practices we choose, we must carry them out in such a way that they will produce this effect in us -- a further purification of our consciences and a renewal of our pledge to God. Each day of Lent, as a result of our Lenten practices, we should pledge ourselves anew to God from a pure and sincere heart.
One indispensable Lenten practice is the sacrament of reconciliation. This brings about the purification of our sinful consciences. What a lie it would be if on Easter Sunday we would go through the formula of renewal of baptismal promises, declaring that we renounce all evil works, but have not confessed our sins nor repented of them, nor purified our heart!
So make a good Lent. Listen attentively each day to God’s word in the liturgy and reform your conscience accordingly; correct your evil tendencies by penitential practices, lift up your heart to God in persistent prayer, come out of your self-centeredness by works of mercy towards your needy fellowmen, and you will be able to keep that pledge of a clean conscience which you made to God when he purified your heart in baptism.
Do these things this lent, and on Easter, the renewal of your baptismal promises will be so sincere and effective that it will profoundly affect your future life, and bring Easter joy into all the days of your life!
OLLIE I LOVE YOU MAN
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