A Lenten Blog, Day 5

A little on Lent

The word “Lent” is derived from an old form of the English word “lengthen”. In the northern hemisphere at this time of year the sky is lightening earlier, and the days are lengthening.

But in Sweden, where I learnt how very long the days become,
the word for Lent has nothing to do with this. Instead, the Swedish word for Lent is “Fastan”, “the Fast”. Like Ramadan is for Muslims, Lent is traditionally for Christians a season of fasting and spiritual discipline. It is based on the remembrance of how Christ has suffered for us.

Yet for some reason Protestant Christians seem to prefer to fast from fasting as their Lenten discipline. A number of Protestant European countries have retained the Catholic tradition of feasting up until and including Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins. English and Dutch eat pancakes on what the English call “Pancake”, or “Shrove Tuesday”.
The French call is “Mardi Gras”, or “Fat Tuesday”.

In Sweden there is a 3 day period, called “Fastlagen”, just before Ash Wednesday when lent begins. Fastlagen is a period of feasting. It begins on “Fastlagssöndagen” and finishes with fettisdagen (“Fat Day”). on which delicious fastlagsbullar with cream, marzipan and icing sugar are consumed. All well and good, but instead of fasting during Lent people simply carry on feasting!

When I was a Lutheran pastor in Sweden over 20 years ago, one of my weekly duties was to lead devotions at a weekly afternoon tea called “trivselträff”, lit. “enjoyment meeting”. After devotions there were always 4 or more different kinds of delicious biscuits and buns, washed down by wonderful Scanian filtered coffee. From mid-February to April fastlagsbullar made their appearance. During Lent I started restricting myself to coffee only - a small enough sacrifice I would have thought.
But the ladies of trivselträff were scandalised that I was not eating fastlagsbullar. It made no difference that I told them that we were in Fastan; they were much exercised that pastor was not eating properly, thus endangering the proper enjoyment of the meeting!

In tomorrow’s blog I’ll write a little about the practice of fasting.

David