Lent

The English word is a small surprise: Lent comes from an old word for spring, the season when the days lengthen. Most other languages simply count, from the Latin quadragesima, “the fortieth”. Forty days, Sundays excluded, to prepare for Easter, in memory of the forty days Jesus spent in the desert. A Lent emoji would have a lot to say in very few pixels: fasting, prayer and giving.

It all starts on Ash Wednesday, when a grey cross is traced on foreheads with the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” The day before, Britain has already flipped its pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, a very practical way of using up the eggs and butter before the fast. Then the liturgy turns purple, except on the fourth Sunday, Laetare, when rose vestments are allowed to smile halfway through.

Lent is not a spiritual diet plan. Fasting makes room, prayer fills it and almsgiving shares it: Matthew’s Gospel puts the three side by side (Matt 6). For now the keyboard offers 🌵 for the desert and 🙏 for everything else. A forehead marked with ashes, an almost empty plate next to an open hand, a purple path of forty steps toward an Easter sunrise: pick up a pencil, the form is waiting just below.