You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Monday, February 25th, 2019. This week on the Catholic Spouts

podcast, we are going to learn all about Lent because the season of Lent is right around the

corner. Lent is a long season. It will feel a little bit long. It's also different,

and it helps us set time apart for specific purpose. We are going to see, do, feel, and even hear

certain different things during the season of Lent.

And we are going to go through all of those things so that you can enter the season,

knowing what to expect, and able to really get as much out of Lent as possible this year.

So today, let's just talk about the basics.

First of all, Lent is a season of time that we spend repairing ourselves. It means like examining the sins that we have fallen into and taking time

to address them and to start moving in a better direction.

It is also a time of penance.

We're going to be talking a lot about penance, and we spoke a little bit about it last week.

Penance, certain things that we do, they can be little acts of suffering, big acts of suffering, that we choose to embrace so that we might break ties with those sinful habits that have sort of put their hooks into us.

Now, if we want to talk just simply about Lent, Lent is five and a half weeks long.

So it's a little bit longer than Advent. Lent always starts on Ash Wednesday.

This year, we will be celebrating Ash Wednesday next week on March 6th.

It starts on Ash Wednesday and it goes five and a half weeks long and

ends on Easter. This year we will be celebrating Easter on April 21st. Over the course of Lent,

we will be called to focus on three different areas. We will be called to focus on prayer, alms

giving, and fasting.

These are the three pillars of Lent that people have been practicing through the Lenton season since Christ was on earth.

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