​During Lent, the Church prepares to celebrate the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus. It is also the time for preparation for Baptism: for those who will be baptized at Easter and for all who will renew their baptismal promises at the Vigil and on Easter Day.   

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and continues until Holy Thursday afternoon when we begin the great Triduum. The “40 days” (not including Sundays) of fasting, prayer, and penitence before Easter reflect Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. They also echo the forty day fast of Moses on Mount Sinai, the journey of the prophet Elijah to Mount Horeb (where he has a vision of God’s presence) and even the forty years of Israel’s journ​ey through the desert toward the Promised Land.