Christians throughout the globe are entering Lent, the season of Christianity where people fast for 40 days (excluding Sundays). The 'sign of penitence' that lasts for the whole season starts on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2015) and ends on Holy Saturday – the day before Easter Sunday.
The season is widely understood and accepted to be a period of meditation, fasting, repentance and reflection on one's deeds and many exercises encapsulating various disciplines are undertaken by Christians as a reflection on life, the words and sacrifices of Lord Jesus Christ.
As the Lenten season arrives, we have rounded up 20 best quotes, sayings and messages to be sent to your loved ones as greetings and wishes for the season, courtesy websites such as Good Reads and Brainy Quote:
- "Lent is a time to renew wherever we are in that process that I call the divine therapy. It's a time to look what our instinctual needs are, look at what the dynamics of our unconscious are."--Thomas Keating
- "Lent comes providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy." -- Pope Francis
- "As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus' thirst...'Repent and believe' Jesus tells us. What are we to repent? Our indifference, our hardness of heart. What are we to believe? Jesus thirsts even now, in your heart and in the poor -- He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you." -- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
- "Some people think that having ash on your forehead is ridiculous. But I am neither ashamed nor afraid because the ashes remind me that I have to someday pass away and reunite with my creator." -- Walter Buns
- "The most important thing a born again Christian can do is to pray." -- Chuck Smith
- "The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist." -- Pope St. Gregory the Great
- "Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God."
-- Andrew Murray - "Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life..." -- Pope Benedict XVI
- "Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ; discipline your body; do not pamper yourself, but love fasting." -- Saint Benedict
- "One should never initiate anything that he cannot saturate with prayer." – Unknown
- "Prayer does not change the purpose of God. But prayer does change the action of God." -- Chuck Smith
- "As you mourn for your sins and weaknesses this Ash Wednesday through fasting, mourning and weeping, may you be truly transformed from your heart." -- John Tribes
- "Everything in life has its own time. There is time to celebrate and there is time to mourn. This is the time for reflection and transformation. Let us look within and change into what we ought to be." -- Aaron Saul
- "Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your etition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God's ear to yourself." -- St. Peter Chrysologus
- "Remember that lent and ash Wednesday is not just about putting away the bad things. It is about creating good things and helping the poor and the needy, being kind to people and much more." -- Jacob Winters
- "Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces." -- S.D. Gordon
- "Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life, all truth and undying ecstatic love – which is the definition of God. In pursuing that goal we find happiness. Pleasure is not the purpose of anything; pleasure is a by-product resulting from doing something that is good. One of the best ways to get happiness and pleasure out of life is to ask ourselves, 'How can I please God?' and, 'Why am I not better?' It is the pleasure-seeker who is bored, for all pleasures diminish with repetition." -- Fulton J. Sheen
- "We all came from dust and to dust we shall return. Even the greatest and the richest people of this generation will be soon forgotten. Let us focus completely on God almighty." -- Vernon Kane
- "Nothing, how little so ever it be, if it is suffered for God's sake, can pass without merit in the sight of God." -- Thomas a Kempis
- "The Lord measures out perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them." -- St. John of the Cross
