A couple of thoughts to ponder:

 

First, my article in the Feb. 25 issue of The Observer about Lent with a section on 40 days led one reader to question the flexibility of the “40” days. She had always been taught that the Sundays of Lent don’t count and that subtracting them out of the 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday left an exact 40. 

 

I imagine many others have worked with those parameters to reach their own 40 days of Lenten sacrificing. My mother, older than our querying reader, had always rolled her eyes at the idea of not counting Lenten Sundays. She and I did try it out one year, and I at least felt that Lent didn’t really happen. Her childhood had included the Sundays, and my family had followed that lead.

 

I did a bit more searching, only to come up empty-handed with no firm, set-in-stone conclusion. But here’s what I found on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website:

 

Question: Why do we say that there are 40 days of Lent? When you count all the days from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, there are 46.

 

Answer: It might be more accurate to say that there is the “40 day fast within Lent.”  Historically, Lent has varied from a week to three weeks to the present configuration of 46 days. The 40 day fast, however, has been more stable. The Sundays of Lent are certainly part of the Time of Lent, but they are not prescribed days of fast and abstinence.

 

Question: So does that mean that when we give something up for Lent, such as candy, we can have it on Sundays?

 

Answer: Apart from the prescribed days of fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and the days of abstinence every Friday of Lent, Catholics have traditionally chosen additional penitential practices for the whole time of Lent. These practices are disciplinary in nature and often more effective if they are continuous, i.e., kept on Sundays as well. That being said, such practices are not regulated by the Church, but by individual conscience.

 

So, there we have it … we can dip into the Triduum to get to 46 days and eliminate the Sundays for our sacrifices and get to 40 if we wish. Or we can let the number be vague, dig into our sacrifices also on Sundays, and continue them into the first two days of the Triduum – Good Friday and Holy Saturday. And really enjoy a few M&Ms at Easter Sunday breakfast!

 

A second thought to ponder this Lent is the usefulness of sacrifice to help the world.

 

Probably many of us wish we could be of more help to the people of Ukraine and others suffering at this time.

 

Making sacrifices on others’ behalf has long been known in our Church as a powerful way to assist those others.

 

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), a Jewish convert and Carmelite who eventually died at the Auschwitz concentration camp, describes how it works: 

 

“Do you hear the groans of the wounded on the battlefields …? You are not a physician and not a nurse and cannot bind up the wounds. You … cannot get to them. Do you hear the anguish of the dying? You would like to be a priest and comfort them. Does the lament of the widows and orphans distress you?

 You would like to be an angel of mercy and help them. 

 

“Look at the crucified. If you are … bound to Him … your being is precious blood. Bound to Him, you are omnipresent as He is. You cannot help here and there like the physician, the nurse, the priest. You can be at all fronts, wherever there is grief, in the power of the cross. Your compassionate love takes you everywhere, this love from the divine heart. Its precious blood is poured everywhere, soothing, healing, saving.”

 

We can deliberately make good use of our sacrifices this Lent, whether those are extra prayers, loving actions, forms of self-denial or charity. All of it can be offered for the people of Ukraine and/or others who are suffering in the world.