Lent Period Quotes

The situation Larch was thinking of was war, the so-called war in Europe; Larch, and many others, feared that the war wouldn’t stay there. (‘I’m sorry, Homer,’ Larch imagined having to tell the boy. ‘I don’t want you to worry, but you have a bad heart; it just wouldn’t stand up to a war.’) What Larch meant was that his own heart would never stand up to Homer Wells’s going to war. The love of Wilbur Larch for Homer Wells extended even to his tampering with history, a field wherein he was an admitted amateur, but it was nonetheless a field that he respected and also loved. (In an earlier entry in the file on Homer Wells – an entry that Dr. Larch removed, for it lent an incorrect tone of voice, or at least a tone of voice unusual for history – Dr. Larch had written: ‘I love nothing or no one as much as I love Homer Wells. Period.

What minstrelsy offered the country during this period was an entertainment of talent, ribaldry, and polemics. But it also lent racism a stage upon which existential fear could become jubilation, and contempt could become fantasy.

Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something – some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature – has told him it is time to wake up ... At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at any other time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.

The four-week period of Advent before Christmas—and the six-week period of Lent before Easter—are times of penance and life change for Christians. In our book The Last Week, we suggested that Lent was a penance time for having been in the wrong procession and a preparation time for moving over to the right one by Palm Sunday. That day’s violent procession of the horse-mounted Pilate and his soldiers was contrasted with the nonviolent procession of the donkey-mounted Jesus and his companions. We asked: in which procession would we have walked then and in which do we walk now?

It was now light twenty-four hours a day; the sun disappeared only briefly near midnight, leaving prolonged, magnificent twilight. Often during this period, the phenomenon of an “ice shower,” caused by the moisture in the air freezing and settling to earth, lent a fairyland atmosphere to the scene.

The Knights of Labor originated in the late 1860s and early 1870s in Philadelphia, but slowly expanded into the rest of Pennsylvania and finally became a national organization with 750,000 members. It encompassed many trade unions and was organized geographically rather than by occupation. “The Knights attempted to organize all American productive workers into ‘one big union’ regardless of skill, trade, industry, race or sex and were divided into local, district and national assemblies, with a centralized structure”155—although substantial autonomy was granted to local assemblies, which took the initiative in establishing hundreds of cooperative stores and factories. The national leadership was less energetic on this score than local leadership. The overarching purpose of the organization was, as its longtime leader Terence Powderly said, “to associate our own labors; to establish co-operative institutions such as will tend to supersede the wage-system, by the introduction of a co-operative industrial system.”156 To this end, the Knights lobbied politically, engaged in numerous strikes, lent their support to other radical social movements, and, of course, organized co-ops. Masses of workers genuinely believed that they could rise from being “rented slaves” to become cooperators in control of their work and wages, living in revitalized and stabilized communities, no longer subject to periods of unemployment. Cooperation was a religion for some of them.

The concept itself likely grew out of the depiction of angels and devils in artwork, as well as human souls, that showed them winged. This would have naturally lent itself to the need for a visual aid to help an audience identify a character as Otherworldly. And while angels had bird wings and demons had bat wings fairies took on insect like wings, paralleling the wider associations growing between fairies and insects across this period

Although I do not consider myself a religious person, I recently found that Lent satisfies my spiritual needs and presents an opportunity. It sets aside a forty-day period to test a sustainable idea, or to evaluate a personal attachment to a habit.

Bob and Lyn set Steve on the path he traveled in life. What was incredible about Steve was how much he made it his own. He took the example of his parents and ran with it. In 1980 Bob and Lyn decided to change the Beerwah Reptile Park to the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, the name under which I would first encounter it. Angry at the senseless slaughter of crocodilians, Bob began to expand the zoo to create habitats for rescued crocs. I can pinpoint the exact period when Steve grew into the man who would become so well known to people around the world as the Crocodile Hunter. It was the time he spent alone, with his first dog, Chilli, in the bush for months at a time, trapping and relocating crocs for the government. At the start of the 1980s, Steve was eighteen, a recent graduate of Caloundra State High School, and still under his father’s tutelage. Ten years later he had been transformed. He proved himself capable of doing some of the most dangerous wildlife work in the world, solo and with spectacular results. Years in the wilderness lent him a deep understanding of the natural world. More than that, he had reinforced a unique connection with wildlife that would stay with him throughout his whole life.

Celebrations Christmas is Italy’s biggest holiday. Stores decorate in gold, silver, red, and white. At home, many people celebrate Christmas Eve with a huge feast, often featuring fish. The Christmas season in Italy lasts until Epiphany, January 6, the date when the Three Wise Men are said to have reached Jesus’s manger. Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas, is mainly a northern European traditional figure, but one that Italians now often celebrate. Traditionally, Italian children become excited about a different gift-giving figure--Befana, whose name comes from the Italian word for Epiphany, Epifania. Befana as supposedly a woman who meant to go with the Wise Men but was too busy. She planned to see them on their way back, but they returned by a different route. Since then, each year on Epiphany, she busily searches for them, riding on a broomstick and bringing gifts. Children dress in costumes like Befana and go to neighboring houses, where they receive small gifts such as fruit and nuts. At the end of the Befana celebration, Befana figures are burned in a bonfire to get rid of the old year and start the new year fresh. Another major festival is Carnevale. It is a huge festival celebrated in the last week before Lent, a serious forty-day period that precedes Easter. Italy’s biggest Carnevale celebration is in Venice, where people dress in dazzling costumes and parade around the city. Though the costumes often feature somber masks, Carnevale is a time for giddy fun. Children run about throwing confetti. Shopkeepers pass out snacks in the city’s squares. Music fills the air. Like Italy itself, it is a feast for the senses.

Lent is also a period of atonement, which is a time to repair past wrongs. We might think of the term “atonement” as meaning “at one-ment,” being at one with one another, being reconciled. One way of understanding the cross is that it represents atonement between humanity and divinity, in that Jesus takes the responsibility for the sins of human beings and cancels them out with his death. But the Passion narrative should also prompt us to think about reconciliation in our own lives.

Forty days represents a period of conversion, of serious preparation for a new way of living.

In principle – and after Nehru – in practice, the choice came to be posed simply: either democracy had to be curtailed, and the intellectual, directive model of development pursued more vigorously (one of the supposed rationales offered for the Emergency of the mid-1970s); or democracy had to be maintained along with all its cumbersome constraints, and the ambition of a long-term developmental project abandoned. The striking point about the seventeen years of Nehru’s premiership was his determination to avoid this stark choice. Any swerve from democracy was ruled out; the intellectual arguments had, however, to be upheld. The claims of techne, the need for specialist perspectives on economic development, were lent authority by the creation in 1950 of an agency of economic policy formulation, insulated from the pressures of routine democratic politics: the Planning Commission. Discussions of national progress were by now being formulated in the technical vocabulary of economics, which made them wholly unintelligible to most Indians. The task of translation was entrusted to the civil service, and as the algebra of progress moved down the echelons, it was mangled and diluted. The civil service itself provoked deep ambivalence among nationalists: mistrusted because of its colonial paternity, but respected for its obvious competence and expertise. In the 1930s Nehru had called for a radical transformation of the Indian Civil Service in a free India, though by the time independence actually arrived he had become decidedly less belligerent towards it. It was Patel who had stood up for the civil servants after 1947, speaking thunderously in their favour in the Constituent Assembly. But by the early 1950s Nehru had himself turned more wholeheartedly towards them: he hoped now to use them against the obstructions raised by his own party. The colonial civil-service tradition of fiscal stringency was preserved during the Nehru period, but the bureaucracy was now also given explicitly developmental responsibilities.

So Ove put up with him. After a period he even lent him tools. And one afternoon, standing in the parking area, thumbs tucked into their belts, they got caught up in a conversation about lawn mower prices. When they parted they shook hands. As if the mutual decision to become friends was a business agreement.

Many Buddhists observe what are known as the Eight Precepts on all the holy days during Lent. The Buddhist holy days are the day of the dark moon, the eighth day of the new moon, the day of the full moon and the eighth day after the full moon. The Eight Precepts are four of the basic Five Precepts (not to kill, steal, lie or take intoxicating drinks) with the addition of four others: not to commit any immoral acts, not to take any food after twelve noon, not to indulge in music, dancing and the use of perfume, not to sleep in high places. (The last is taken to mean that one should not sleep in a luxurious bed.) Some devout Buddhists keep these eight precepts throughout the three months of Lent. Because it is a time when people should be thinking of their spiritual development, Buddhists should not get married during this period. Marriage brings family life and therefore greater ties and attachments. Thus it is likely to make the achieving of nirvana more difficult. The end of Lent coincides with the end of the monsoon rains in October. It is a time for happiness and rejoicing. Tradition has it that the Lord Buddha spent one Lent in the Tavatimsa heaven to preach to his mother. (His mother had died in giving birth to him and had been reborn in Tavatimsa, one of the many Buddhist heavens.) At the end of Lent, he came back to earth and the people of the world welcomed him with lights. In celebration of this, during the three days of the Thidingyut festival, pagodas, monasteries and homes are decorated with lights and lanterns.

Outbreaks forced empires to change course – like the Byzantine Empire when struck by the Plague of Justinian in 541-542 – and some even to disappear altogether – when Aztec and Inca emperors died with most of their subjects from European germs. Also, authoritative measures to attempt to contain them have always been part of the policy arsenal. Thus, there is nothing new about the confinement and lockdowns imposed upon much of the world to manage COVID-19. They have been common practice for centuries. The earliest forms of confinement came with the quarantines instituted in an effort to contain the Black Death that between 1347 and 1351 killed about a third of all Europeans. Coming from the word quaranta (which means “forty” in Italian), the idea of confining people for 40 days originated without the authorities really understanding what they wanted to contain, but the measures were one of the first forms of “institutionalized public health” that helped legitimatize the “accretion of power” by the modern state.[1] The period of 40 days has no medical foundation; it was chosen for symbolic and religious reasons: both the Old and New Testaments often refer to the number 40 in the context of purification – in particular the 40 days of Lent and the 40 days of flood in Genesis.

Lent began as a period of preparation for Christian baptism—many of the baptisms in the early Church were performed on Easter Day. Over time, as an ungodly system of works-righteousness began to establish a deeper hold on the minds and hearts of many professing Christians, the church calendar began to reflect a false understanding of the nature of the gospel—as though holiness consisted of giving up things. Now we want to return to an explicit and Christian understanding of our days and years, which they certainly had, but we want to do this without making the same mistakes they did.

At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. George Orwell, cited by John Carey

Religious believers build self-control by regularly forcing themselves to interrupt their daily routines in order to pray. Some religions, like Islam, require prayers at fixed times every day. Many religions prescribe periods of fasting, like the day of Yom Kippur, the month of Ramadan, and the forty days of Lent. Religions mandate specific patterns of eating, like kosher food or vegetarianism. Some services and meditations require the believer to adopt and hold specific poses (like kneeling, or sitting cross-legged in the lotus position) so long that they become uncomfortable and require discipline to maintain them.

ships arriving from the eastern Mediterranean were directed. There, vessels from suspect areas were impounded to be scrubbed and fumigated. At the same time crew and passengers were taken ashore under guard and isolated. The cargo and the passengers’ personal effects were unloaded, turned out in the sun, fumigated, and aired. Only at the end of forty days were the goods and passengers released to enter the city. The period of confinement, termed “quarantine” after the Italian word quaranta (forty), constituted the core of the public health strategy. Its duration was based on Christian Scripture, as both the Old and New Testaments make multiple references to the number forty in the context of purification: the forty days and forty nights of the flood in Genesis, the forty years of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai before receiving the Ten Commandments, the forty days of Christ’s temptation, the forty days Christ stayed with his disciples after his resurrection, and the forty days of Lent. With such religious sanction, the conviction held that forty days were sufficient to cleanse the hull of a ship, the bodies of its passengers and crew, and the cargo it carried. All pestilential vapors would be harmlessly dispersed, and the city would be spared. Meanwhile, the biblical resonance of quarantine would fortify compliance with the administrative rigor involved and would provide spiritual comfort for a terrified city.

The lent period of fasting should be passionately pursued .

In 1383, the authorities in Marseille extended the isolation period to forty days, giving the quarantine its name. (The duration was a biblical touch, inspired by the forty days and forty nights of the flood in Genesis, the forty years the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness, and the forty days of Lent.)

For much of the early medieval period, Christmas was often regarded as the opposition to Lent – a time of wild revelry before the restraint and piety that started on Ash Wednesday and ran until Easter.