Lent is traditionally called a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but counting calendar days can be confusing. In the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season ends before the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.
Why Lent is called 40 days
The number forty has strong biblical symbolism. It recalls periods of testing and preparation, including Israel’s forty years in the wilderness and Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the desert.
The Church therefore speaks of a forty-day Lenten fast even though the calendar span from Ash Wednesday into Holy Week contains more than forty ordinary dates.
Do Sundays count?
Sundays occur during Lent and are part of the liturgical season, but historically they are not counted as prescribed fast days in the same way as weekdays. This is one reason popular ways of counting the forty days can produce different totals.
The current Roman calendar preserves the symbolic forty-day character of Lent without requiring every calendar calculation to equal exactly forty.
When does Lent end?
In the Roman Rite, Lent ends before the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. The Paschal Triduum then begins and reaches its climax in the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday.
People sometimes speak informally of Lent lasting until Easter, but the liturgical distinction between Lent and the Triduum is more precise.
What Catholics do during Lent
Catholic practice emphasizes prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence for those bound by the rules, and Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence from meat in the Latin Church.
Many Catholics also choose a personal sacrifice or positive spiritual practice, but voluntary customs should not be confused with universal church law.
Short answer
Lent is called a 40-day season, but the liturgical calendar and treatment of Sundays explain why a simple count of dates may be longer than forty.
