What began as a shorter time of preparing catechumens for baptism at the Easter Vigil, expanded over the centuries to 40 days of penitence, excluding Sundays. Lent began on Ash Wednesday and ended when the Easter Vigil began. Today the Season of Lent is a little less than 40 days, the Church having designated the three days from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday to the Vespers (Evening Prayer) of Easter Sunday as a Sacred Triduum (3 days), celebrating the Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. While the development of the Lenten days was various throughout the Church, it may have been suggested by Christ laying in death for 40 hours, or by his 40 days of prayer and fasting in the desert (a number itself reminiscent of Israel’s 40 years in the desert for disbelieving God). Regarding the connection to Christ’s own life, the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning” [Heb 4:15]. By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert. (CCC 540)