What is a Lenten Challenge?

What is Lent and why is it important? How do you observe Lent and what is a Lenten Challenge?

Lent is an observational period of time in which many Christian denominations prepare for Easter. The six to eight weeks of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are observed by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Anglican denominations. Lent generally starts during the 6 weeks or 40 days preceding Palm Sunday with fasting continuing during the Holy Week of Orthodox Easter.

The observation of Lent has evolved over the centuries. Depending on where you were located, for example, Rome, Jerusalem, Constantinople, or the British Isles, Lenten practices were possibly different in length and requirements. In most practices, there was and is some type of fasting, prayers, and almsgiving. We see some semblance of these three practices in Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism as well. The concept is to release the self, controlling passions, asking for help, and reaching closer to God or the Higher Being. In addition, a by-product is that the physical body gets a “reset”. We become more attuned to our physical self and integrate that into our spiritual being.

As early as the 3^rd century, Christians were asked to fast and abstain in reverence to Jesus’ days in the wilderness. In the 6^th century, Pope Gregory mandated fasting and abstaining from anything meat, thus observing Christians cooked pancakes (or some semblance thereof) to use up their milk, eggs, and lard prior to the start of Lent. Hence, we have Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, etc.

Basically, if one is adhering to fasting and abstinence until the rules changes again in later centuries, one basically practiced a plant-based lifestyle for six weeks, without the processed foods of course. Whole grains, stored vegetables or early spring crops, herbs, seeds, nuts, – anything that did not come from an animal. I can’t seem to find why Pope Gregory chose a non-animal eating pattern as the choice. Perhaps animal products were a luxury. Perhaps eating animals indicated gluttony. Perhaps it was just a practical, supply-chain thing. Cows birthed calves, so there wasn’t much milk. Last year’s preserved meats were almost gone. Any livestock alive needed to give birth to new ones. The butchers were obviously quite upset and couldn’t wait to break the fast on Easter, especially in Ireland. There were always workarounds including baking with non-animal products such as nuts and seeds.

As primarily plant-based life-stylers, how does one observe Lent? There is no need to abstain from animal products because that is already part of our eating pattern. Hmmm, do we jump for joy and check that off the list?

One can still fast or abstain from a wonderful vegan delight. (As we all know, a person be an unhealthy vegan). When fasting or abstaining, the idea was to give the money that would have been used for a meal, to a charity.

Before my husband and I went plant-based, we started participating in Catholic Relief Services’ Operation Rice Bowl program. This is not a brag. The Operation Rice Bowl program would share indigenous recipes from areas of the world they supported. We would learn about a country and eat foods we had never or rarely eaten at the time, (although we DO eat them now! – a lot). It was also a spiritual journey to share the experience of eating less, simpler, and/or without our Western options to enhance a dish.

Religions and their denominations may have different options for observing Lent. Perhaps this is a time to test a plant-based lifestyle. Evaluate the reasons for going plant-based and offering this test as a means of sacrifice, fasting, praying, and reflection. Take pause. What personal fortitude does it take to eat a bowl of just beans and rice? To use up every scrap of veg? Embrace a dish of whole food that you have not tried before? Will it bring you closer to God? Bring greater appreciation for the fruits of the earth? Will your body be stronger and healthier to do good works?