From Our Pastor

March 1, 2026 • Second Sunday of Lent

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

There are 40 days of Lent.  But how do we count them?   The season of Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday until the evening of Holy Thursday, when the Easter Triduum begins. If Sundays are excluded from the count, the season lasts forty days. The forty-day length of Lent is rooted in the biblical usage of the number forty. Forty is typically indicative of a time of testing, trial, penance, purification, and renewal. In the New Testament, forty days is the length of Jesus’ time of trial in the desert in preparation for his public ministry, proclaiming the Gospel.

The forty-day period of Jesus’ trial in the desert echoes a number of events in the Old Testament:

  • God said to Noah about the great flood: “I will bring rain down on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and so I will wipe out from the surface of the earth every moving creature that I have made” (Genesis 7:4).
  • Moses spent forty years as a shepherd in the desert before God called him to lead the Israelites out of slavery.
  • Moses fasted for forty days and nights on Mount Sinai before receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments. 
  • The Israelites spent forty years wandering in the desert as a time of testing, trial, and purification of the people, before reaching the Promised Land.
  • The prophet Elijah spent forty days in the desert before encountering God on Mount Horeb.
  • Jonah, after being spat out from the belly of the whale, announced to the Ninevites that they had been given forty days before God was going to destroy the city, allowing time for repentance and conversion.

Outside of the Bible, we know the term “the back forty.”  Originating from the 19th century Homestead Acts, it refers to a remote, often uncultivated, or undeveloped 40-acre plot of land located at the farthest edge of a farm or ranch.  That’s an interesting image for the forty days of Lent as well. Think of God, through our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, cultivating those parts of our hearts and lives that need growth and development.