Dear confreres, novices, postulants, associates and lay associates, Those of us who are south of the Mason Dixon Line or who are B.C. residents are more or less guaranteed a pleasant opening to Lent, with trees and flowers beginning to show new life.
Spring is a more distant hope in Ontario.
The calendar is set and Lent starts for us all on Wednesday, February 17. The length and character of Lent has developed and changed over a long period of History. Originally, these days were set aside as the final preparation of catechumens for Easter Baptism. It has been used as a time of public penance for sinners desiring to return to communion with the Church. Most of us knew it as forty days in which to bring the body into submission through all sorts of practices and penances.