What is the significance of 40 days of lent

People who focus too closely on what they hate giving up miss something so important behind its meaning. But we know denying things that separate us from God allow us to begin again, and grow in our relationship with Him. We are also making resolutions and committing to change our lives in an effort to be more like Christ. If we want to filly embrace Christ, we have to deny our whole self — this includes anything that comes in conflict with receiving Christ, and prepares us for a new beginning in Him.

We are also told in John that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. As we let go of sin, and constantly work towards building our faith, we begin to receive the fullness of Christ, and enjoy the pleasures of new life in Him. Prayer is especially important during Lent because it helps us grow in our relationship with God, and also gives us strength to endure anything we will confront on our journey. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

In Christian history and tradition, it is a period in the spring set aside for fasting in some way giving up something for spiritual reasons in preparation for Easter and the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

Traditionally, it starts on Ash Wednesday, which is the Wednesday that falls 40 days before Easter. The purpose for Lent has always been clear: to get spiritually ready. What is special is the number 40 itself—the length, the time period. Have you ever taken 40 days to fast from something, to turn toward something, or to pray about something you know is critical to who you are and who you are becoming? Have you ever taken 40 days to become a different person, to set a new path, to chart a new course?

Forty days to end a bad habit or to start a good habit? For many years, research found if you wanted to change something in your life—to end a habit or start a new one—it would take just three weeks. So, all of the marketing strategies were focused on the number 21 to break a habit or form a new one. In fact, research has now found that it takes twice that length—not three weeks, but more like six weeks—which comes out at right about … you guessed it … 40 days.

Studies now show if you stick with something for six to eight weeks, that somewhere around the day mark it will set in. You will have established a new habit for your life. Research seems to be showing that 40 really is the key to life change. So, whether the goal is to start something or stop something, reflect deeply on something or remove something harmful from your vision completely, 40 days is what it will take. There was someone who did not want them to go out into the desert to offer sacrifice to their God.

Pharaoh did not take the loss of his cheap labor lying down. When Jesus begins his mission of liberation, there is another slave master who is no more willing than Pharaoh to let his minions go without a fight. Since the sixties, it has been fashionable in some quarters to dismiss the devil as a relic of ancient mythology or medieval fantasy. The guy with the pointy tail and the pitchfork comes in handy in cartoons and costume parties, but how can we take such an image seriously?

Such a view is clearly at odds with Scripture, Tradition, and recent teaching of the Magisterium. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, says St. Used with permission. But Satan tries to make material things the ultimate, distracting us from a deeper hunger and a more enduring food. Political power and all leadership is intended by God for the sake of serving the common good; Satan twists things to make leaders self-seeking, oppressive tyrants like himself. The lust for power and fame ironically leads not to dominion but to slavery to the Dark Lord remember what happened to the Nazghoul in the Lord of the Rings.

Sounds a lot like the Pharisees. Jesus triumphs in this first wrestling match. He shows us how to keep from being pinned. Fasting breaks undue attachments to material blessings and stimulates our spiritual appetite. Humble service breaks the stranglehold of pride. The reverent worship of authentic faith breaks the full nelson of superstition, magic, and all arrogant religion.

So our forty days?