Welcome back to Thomas Popery. I'm Joe Heschmire. And today I want to explore the true history of

Lent. Now, some Christians just know Lent is at time of year where we give stuff up. They may not even know why.

Other Christians know that it's the penitential season in preparation for Easter Sunday,

but how many of us know why the Lenton season was instituted? Do we know when the first Lint happened? I think the story

is actually really cool, so I thought I'd share a quick video unpacking that history. Now, I know

we've just entered into Lent, but the one thing I couldn't bring myself to give up was thanking our

beautiful supporters over at Shamelessjo.com. This show runs because of your direct support. We haven't

taken sponsors. This ministry is possible because of your direct support. We haven't taken sponsors.

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All right.

So the first thing to note is that the point of Lint really isn't just giving things up like chocolate or pizza.

If you want to do that,

don't get me wrong. That is wonderful. And certainly, if there's anything in your life that should

not be there, this is a great time to root out any kind of sinful attachments you may have. But there

are actually three spiritual practices associated with Lent. It is a season to focus on prayer,

fasting, and almsgiving. And these three are not randomly chosen.

Jesus and Matthew 6 says, when you give alms, and when you pray, and when you fast. Now notice,

he doesn't say, if you pray fast or give alms. Jesus is telling us these are not optional parts of the spiritual life.

But why is Lent in particular this special season of fasting?

And when and why did Lent become 40 days long?

Because believe it or not, Lent used to be a lot shorter, but also a lot more intense.

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