Lent

The expression Fastenzeit, “Season of Fasting”, which we use in German to designate the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter, tells us but little about what the Church intends this season to be. Originally, this was the period when baptism was administered; the period, therefore, in which people became Christians. It was thought that this could be accomplished, not in one short moment of time, but only over the course of a journey of transformation or “conversion” that the individual had to travel step by step.
Later, when penitents and finally the entire Church were included in the journey, this reflected the awareness that we cannot travel this path all at once to its conclusion. No, it is a lifelong journey on which we must set out over and over again. The purpose of Lent, therefore, is to keep alive in our consciousness and our life the fact that being a Christian can only take the form of becoming a Christian ever anew; that it is not an event now over and done with but a process requiring constant practice.