Lent
Lent is scheduled backwards from Easter. Lent is a time of fasting and penitence, for 40 weekdays and six Sundays before Easter. Christians always celebrate Sunday as the day Jesus rose from the dead, so it is never a day of fasting. It is a season of preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. The season begins with Ash Wednesday, when pastors mark the foreheads of Christians with ashes as a reminder that we are created from dust and to dust we shall return. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, also called Sunday of the Passion, and continues through Good Friday, when Jesus was tried, crucified, and buried.
Many Northern Europeans celebrate the day before Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday, also called Shrove Tuesday), by eating foods believed inappropriate during Lent (eggs, butter, cream, meat). It is a time of getting down to essentials, remembering baptism, letting go of the bondage of sin, and celebrating the freedom from the bondage of slavery.
See also: Christianity
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