Blessing the Dust
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
If you happened to notice someone walking around with dirt on their face a couple of weeks ago, it might have been because they accidentally rubbed their forehead while cleaning out the fireplace, but it was probably because February 18th was Ash Wednesday, the day when liturgical Christians following the Gregorian (Western) calendar marked the beginning of a 40-day season of Lent.
That little smudge of dust on the forehead was your friendly reminder that we’re all going to die.
For some, that might seem like a rather ominous portent. For many gnostic-leaning Protestants, it may even sound blasphemous. American churches across the sociopolitical and denominational spectrum — infused with a curious combination of self-help capitalism, narcissistic exceptionalism, and psychological splitting — often refuse to accept or even acknowledge that pain, loss, and death are part of the human condition. The euphoric high vibes of Easter are channeled year-round in a desperate attempt to drown out any negative thoughts, emotions, or “energies.”
But for Christians who affirm the sacred cycle of liturgical time, Ash Wednesday’s raw confrontation with the existential reality of our creatureliness is what makes the holiday so holy, and necessary:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
These are the words spoken as a cross is drawn upon your forehead, using ashes made from the burnt palms of last year’s Holy Week. The words are completely mundane, utterly factual, and yet increasingly scandalous to say in an era of transhumanist utopianism, reality-denying sim theory, cancerous devotion to economic models of limitless growth, and tech bro fantasies of GenAI bots riddling out what the ancient gods never could: how to save billionaires from the jaws of death.
The cowardly hubris that drives human beings to believe they have found a hack for death is nothing new, of course. But it has taken on a particularly grotesque form in the last 30 years, highlighting how easily false promises about the future can be used by wealthy elites to justify sacrificial violence in the present.
Within this context, Ash Wednesday’s witness to the humble reality of our creatureliness feels like an especially radical form of resistance.
“Praised be to you, my Lord, through Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living person can escape.”
—Francis of Assisi
Ash Wednesday, like Christianity, is body-positive. Incarnational theology affirms both the reality of the material world and its goodness. Both are still remarkably controversial claims.
Though much confusion remains in Western pop culture about the collective wisdom that slowly emerged as “orthodox Christianity” during the first eight centuries, contrary to the most popular Protestant version of the story, Byzantine Christianity was not simply some puppet project of imperial Rome. In fact, many of the doctrines that the church discerned in the years between 325—787 CE affirmed the common faith of the people in defiance of the preferred ideologies of emperors and elites (see the Council of Ephesus, for example). Constantine himself was an Arian, a doctrine that was emphatically denounced as a heresy at the First Council of Nicea in 325.
Imperials, of course, have always tended to prefer more dualistic ideologies that can be easily grafted onto traditional narratives of power: hierarchies of gods and humans that can be used to justify the sacrifices of those at the bottom to serve the spiritual elites at the top, usually in exchange for some trickle-down benefits. At various points throughout church history, Christians have themselves contorted the Gospel into their own body-denying theologies of trickle-down salvation. But the incarnational faith of the councils still offers a radical theological vision that is surprisingly hopeful and positive about the potentialities of the human, despite its clear recognition of our bodily mortality.
Two millennia later, the nuances of this theology still serve as a stumbling block to ever-new forms of hierarchical dualism and pietistic perfectionism that continue to serve the egocentric whims of the privileged: prosperity theologies and wellness cult spiritualities that prioritize earning and advancement through esoteric stages of metaphysical superiority, the confused ramblings of Silicon Valley pseudophilosophers like Peter Theil (who has somehow mistaken the long tradition of Christian nonviolence with fascism), and really just the entire modern Western project of crafting for the individual self (who can afford it) an idealized experience of control through a life purged of all physical, psychological, and relational limitations, boundaries, and consequences.
This is not the way of Jesus, of course. The way of Jesus — rooted in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrews, whose God remained steadfastly by Israel’s side through periods of exile, enslavement, and defeat — follows the path of the broken, the poor, the sinner, the oppressed… the loser. The way of Jesus follows the downward path of kenosis, a Greek word that means “self-emptying.” When Jesus says “blessed are the poor,” he is not recommending some new minimalist aesthetic as a spiritual technique for attaining moral superiority over one’s peers. Rather, Jesus affirms that the poor, the persecuted, the oppressed, the merciful, the grieving, and the weak are “blessed” because their perspective is much closer to reality. The “least of these” are often far less prone to the uniquely human delusion that life is a game they can win.
Still, all human beings are habitually prone to seek our own personal safety by purging our environment of perceived threats and impurities. In clinical psychology, the mental barriers human beings construct between our sense of “self” and those things we perceive to be harmful, negative, or shameful is known as splitting, also known as “black and white thinking.” This mental habit is related to another psychological phenomenon called projective identification, wherein we not only dissociate from those rejected attributes in ourselves, but we simultaneously fixate on their presence in an Other — someone or something outside the self that we can then try to change, fix, control, or eradicate.
Splitting can take on a variety of forms in different individuals and cultures, but perhaps no other habit is more quintessentially human, since it relates to both our intersubjective confusion and our ability to use symbols to assign meanings to distinct phenomena. In other words, splitting is an unfortunate side effect of our basic capacity to use language to communicate consciously with an “other” at all (even the most insistent gurus of “nondualism” are forever doomed to define their concept against its opposite, for contrast).
In his 1982 book The Scapegoat, French anthropologist René Girard mapped these cognitive patterns onto both literary and cultural history, identifying how these ingrained tendencies, when played out at scale, graft onto oversimplified narratives of good vs. evil that usually result in collectively justified violence. The undercurrents of our current social and political climate are rooted in this psychological phenomenon, but it is a habit that stretches far back in humanity, well before the time of Jesus.
The problem, of course, with trying to purge our own shame by eradicating it in an Other, is that even if we succeed in doing so, it still does not resolve the original fracture within the Self. As long as this internal splitting remains in the shadow of our own self-conscience, we will continue to look for, and will always inevitably find, another scapegoat.
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the splinter out of your eye” while the log is in your own? You hypocrite — first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s eye.”
—Matthew 7:1-5
This delusional and addictive habit of externalization and self-justification is the process by which we crucify ourselves and one another, in our misguided attempts to gain control over our own unacknowledged pain, shame, and fear. Crucifixion is the result of our refusal to accept and integrate the brokenness we find in ourselves and our world.
Ash Wednesday interrupts this unconscious cycle by first of all confronting us with the limitations of our own perspective: “Remember that you are dust” means, first and foremost, remember that you are not God. Remember that you are not all-seeing, all-knowing, or all-loving. Remember that, like all human creatures, you are wholly susceptible to the same unconscious patterns of blindness, indifference, and self-serving confirmation bias as your ancestors.
The Story of Sin
This reminder that we are not God cuts right to the heart of the ancient creation myth found in Genesis 2-5, which describes with surprising accuracy the psychological process by which human beings “miss the mark,” as told through the primordial story of the very first humans: Adam and Eve.
Most of us know the basic outline — the crafty serpent catches Eve in a solitary moment when God seems absent, introducing suspicion and confusion into her mind: “Did God really say that…?” It’s worth noting that what the serpent says to Eve is technically true: “You won’t die,” he insists, “…but you will become like God.” The deception casts a shadow of doubt on the trust in God that the humans, up until this point, had simply taken for granted.
And yet, one of the most important details of the story is also the one that’s most often missed: the fruit was not, in fact, an apple. It is specifically identified as the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
In other words, this “fruit” is a direct reference to the aforementioned shadow side of human consciousness: the splitting that divides our field of vision in two, causing us to perceive everything — ourselves, one another, the earth — through the black and white lens of judgement. “Eating” from this fruit twists our basic survival needs into anxious and self-serving justifications for accumulation, manipulation, and domination.
We see this pattern reflected in the very things that Eve notices when the serpent lures her to look again at this forbidden fruit: she perceives that it is good for food, that it is a delight to the eyes, and it is desirable to make one wise. Here, Eve struggles with the three basic temptations out of which all “sin” arises, all of which are rooted in our core survival instincts. When we reach for divine status in order to satisfy our own desires:
…our basic need for sustenance becomes the temptation to hoard possessions
…our basic need for belonging becomes the temptation to project a false self-image for the sake of prestige
…our basic need for safety becomes the temptation to control, manipulate, and dominate others for power
Giving into these temptations is not inevitable, but it does tend to happen more easily and frequently in times of stress and confusion, when we allow suspicion and doubt to guide our seeing and thinking. Under these conditions, “the knowledge of good and evil” looks like the path to eternal life. It seems to be just the thing that will allow us to claim for ourselves all we need forever — a life without limits, without death, without God. Indeed, we will be like Gods.
But this is not what happens when the humans eat from that fruit. They do not immediately die, no, but something has irrevocably changed. Suddenly they are ashamed of their differences. They sew fig leaves to hide their nakedness from one another. And when God finally questions them about what happened, they quickly shift into postures of blame, judgment, and scapegoating. Adam blames Eve: “The woman made me do it!” Eve blames the Serpent: “The devil made me do it!”
The shadow side of our ability to judge others, it turns out, is our fear of being judged. This is “original sin.”
Now seeing themselves as the subjective reference point for what is right and good, Adam and Eve can no longer live in the Garden of eternity because they are no longer in right relationship with themselves, one another, or the rest of creation. But they interpret the experience of consciousness and its inevitable consequences as a punishment from God: the patterns of narcissism and codependency that get mapped onto human relationships… the ways in which we anxiously toil for food as we exploit and plunder the earth… these were not necessarily part of God’s will for us. They are the direct fruits of our trying to grasp at divinity for ourselves, meeting our own needs through our own willpower, rather than humbly learning to accept what it means to be fully human.
The limited human ego cannot bear the knowledge of good and evil comprehensively or impartially. There is a reason that the 12 step process of healing from addiction begins with admitting our powerlessness and surrendering to a Higher Power. Lent begins with a similar challenge: first, you must remember that you are not in control… and then you must accept that this is okay. It is okay that the world does not revolve around you. It is good, even. This is meant to humble us, but not for the sake of piling on more shame and judgement. On the contrary, it is meant for our liberation. This is the pathway to true rest.
Lent invites us into the liberating process of learning how to de-center ourselves in an ontological context of love and belonging. We take 40 days to learn how to respond to temptation by mirroring the postures that Jesus took during his 40 days in the wilderness. In the desert, Jesus faced all the same temptations as the first humans, but the Gospel of Matthew shows us how he overcame them:
When Satan tempted Jesus with the desire for possessions (“turn these stones into bread”), he responded by maintaining a clear distinction between his anxious desires and his authentic needs.
When Satan tempted him with the desire for prestige (“set him on the pinnacle of the Temple”), Jesus responded by trusting in God’s mercy and his own belovedness without the need for proof.
When Satan tempted him with the desire for power (“all the kingdoms of the world can be yours”), Jesus responded by refusing to bow down to any earthly authority, declaring his allegiance to the Creator alone.
This is what it looks like to resist temptation.
This is also what we mean when we say that Jesus was fully human but “without sin.” Notice, this does not mean that he maintained a zen-like state of calmness, that he avoided all pain, that he was always nice to people, or that he stoically suppressed his so-called negative emotions. Resisting temptation is not about controlling “vibes” — yours or anyone else’s. It also does not guarantee escape from pain or suffering (anyone who says differently is selling something!). All four Gospels report that Jesus experienced anger, fear, and sadness at various times throughout the years between his being tempted in the wilderness and his execution on a cross. But the choices of his life were guided by a different compass.
The pathway to becoming fully human is about choosing to trust in God even when our emotions, our circumstances, and our communities and cultures are conspiring to drive us into denial or despair. We will not do this perfectly. But as Christians, we are called to continually seek intentional ways day after day to pattern our lives after Christ, situating ourselves more and more in God’s eternal love and mercy. We are called to do this every day, but the 40 days of Lent invite us into an intensive period of discernment that re-enacts Jesus’ time in the wilderness, allowing us to confront the reality of our mortality, accept our human frailty and limits, and learn to resist temptation in concrete and specific ways.
“First, there is the fall, and then there is the recovery from the fall.
But both are the mercy of God.”
—Julian of Norwich
How to Practice Lent
Many people choose to “give up” something during the season of Lent — certain foods, alcohol, social media, etc. Others (especially industrious hard-working Protestants) prefer to take on something for the season — a new spiritual practice, devotional reading, or a discipline of prayer. Overachievers do both, while more seasoned practitioners may wisely reflect on their need to give up overzealous performances of religiosity for Lent.
In recent years, it has also become commonplace for people to offer hot up takes about Lent on social media — this year for Lent, don’t give up chocolate, give up injustice. Like most thought-terminating cliches on the internet, however, these kinds of posts do little to actually help a person move through the complicatedness of self-reflection and inner transformation in the context of real, everyday life.
In a cultural context of digital voyeurism and self-help pyramid schemes, Lenten practices of all kinds can become distorted and turn into just another form of earning. But fasting is not dieting. This is not a “do over” for your New Year’s resolution — a chance to gain extra “spiritual” points while also dropping a few pounds. If anything, Lent offers a grace to us right around the time that our resolutions are probably starting to slip, confronting us with the limitations of the human will left to its own devices.
Lent is also not about trying to come up with some clever way to put a creative new spin on a penitential season to show off how nuanced your theology is, or how aware of social justice issues you are. As Jesus reminded his disciples nearly two thousand years ago, in a text that is still read every year in churches all over the world on Ash Wednesday:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them… whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.”
—Matthew 6:1,13
Practicing Lent isn’t ultimately about what you give up or take on. It’s about an examination and transformation of your true inner intentions. It’s about the very untrendy exercise of “making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves” (again to borrow language from the Twelve Steps), so that we might turn away (“repent”) from habits and patterns that unwittingly lead us to participate in the crucifixion of ourselves and others. That’s it.
The reason we give something up during Lent is to challenge our sense of dependency on those things to which we most easily become addicted: food, drink, image, control, attention. Again, the idea is to replicate the experience of Jesus in the wilderness, which was itself a mirroring of the 40 years that the Israelites had to spend in the wilderness learning to live according to the ways of their Creator.
Giving things up helps us to recognize the intensity of our wanting, while at the same time showing us that we can resist these patterns in conscious and healthy ways, by redirecting our focus and sense of dependency on God. Likewise, the reason to take up something during Lent is to intentionally make room for the development of new habits and patterns in our lives that can help us more easily and instinctively “practice resurrection.”
This is not the kind of shift that happens all at once. As Episcopal Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe writes in his Ash Wednesday letter, “the conversion of the heart that we must undertake may start with a blinding light, but the ongoing change it requires is the work of a lifetime.” Spiritual transformation is a lifelong process of learning how to deepen into self-awareness in the context of grace. That is why our liturgical calendar moves us through yearly, cyclical seasons of learning, growing, and maturing.
Lent is not a time to prove that you have this Christianity thing all figured out. It is a time to commit to some specific action, however small, that could effectively move the needle of your life closer to the mercy and love of God in some concrete way.
Things to Give Up
Mindful of the aforementioned caveats, and taking into consideration humanity’s three “root” temptations, I offer here some ideas to consider if you are new to the practice of Lent, or just drawing a blank on what would be most helpful this year:
FOOD: Again, fasting is not dieting but an embodied form of prayer. It is crucial to understand this difference before embarking on any Lenten fast involving food. People under the age of 17, over the age of 60, and those with eating disorders or other physical or mental health concerns are not encouraged to engage in Lenten fasting involving food. However healthy adults age 18-59 may want to consider the following options:
Go Vegetarian — Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians each have their own fasting rules during Lent (outlined in more detial below) but one common theme is giving up meat, since vegetarianism was the diet that God originally prescribed for humans in the story of creation.
Give up a Specific Food — Many people choose to give up a specific food to which they feel a particularly unhealthy attachment (if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth, giving up chocolate is not going to be particularly revelatory). Abstaining from alcohol during Lent is also a practice common to both Roman and Orthodox traditions. Whatever you abstain from, the idea is to choose something that is challenging enough that the practice will regularly call your attention back to God.
Eat More Mindfully — Another way to approach this is just to consider your eating habits more broadly, striving for simplicity and austerity throughout the season in general: give up fast food or eating out, cook less elaborate meals, use simple or unprocessed ingredients, or just commit to eating more mindfully at each meal.
POSSESSIONS: The first temptation involves not only food but also time and money, which we believe we must hoard in order to have “enough.” Almsgiving is considered one of the “three pillars” of Lent (along with fasting and prayer), which can take the form of money or time/labor:
Give up Excess Wealth — During Christmastide all Christians are encouraged to give charitably from whatever they have out of a spirit of joy and generosity. But Lent is a time when those with excessive wealth are particularly encouraged to consider the impact that their extra stores of money might be having on their ability to follow Jesus.1 For those who want to explore their relationship with money more deeply, especially in order to discern out how to responsibly divest of their excess wealth, the Faith and Money Network is an amazing resource.
Give Your Time — Instead of giving up money or things, consider making a commitment to give up your time in the service of others. This could mean volunteering at a community organization, but it could also just mean listening for opportunities to help folks out as the need arises: offer to give someone a ride, make someone a meal, run an errand for someone who is overwhelmed, show someone how to do something, take extra time to sit with a friend or family member who is struggling, offer to watch someone’s kids while they treat themselves to a break.
PRESTIGE: The second temptation is to project a false self-image in order to earn our sense of love, self-worth, and belonging. This can lead to addictive and unhealthy relationships with others. We resist this temptation by staying rooted in our confidence that we are already God’s beloved.
Give up Social Media — The most popular form of fasting from prestige during Lent is to give up social media, which can help us to recover a sense of what life was like before everything became a performance we could monetize. For many, this also comes with the added bonus of creating a lot of extra free time to take up something new (see below for some ideas!). For those who are unable to fast from social media completely because of family or work, apps like Freedom and FocusMe can help you set a schedule to limit your use during this fasting season.
Give up Self-Referencing — Simone Weil wrote that “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Most of us have a tendency to keep our attention on ourselves even when we are talking with others. Fasting from various forms of self-referencing during Lent can help us to develop a deeper self-awareness and a greater sense of empathy. This might include things like: not interrupting others, not comparing ourselves to others, not immediately responding to someone else’s story with a similar story from your own life, not giving someone advice based on something that worked for you, not piggybacking off of someone else’s idea or comment in order to get your own point across, etc.
POWER: The third temptation confronts us with the ways in which we seek power over others in order to feel “safe.” In his Ash Wednesday sermon, Pope Leo XIV acknowledged that while sin is personal, “it takes shape in the real and virtual contexts of life, in the attitudes we adopt towards each other that mutually impact us, and often within real economic, cultural, political, and even religious ‘structures of sin’.” Considering some of the ways we participate in these wider webs of cultural harm might be the most important thing all of us can do this year.
Give up Quid-Pro-Quo Exchanges — “All the kingdoms of the world I will give you,” the devil promises Jesus, “if you will fall down and worship me.” So much evil in the world results from our willingness to sell ourselves out for the chance to succeed, get ahead, and/or maintain our own safety. Lent is a good time to resist this transactional mindset, examining all the ways we habitually minimize, justify, ignore, or defend the harm others in the name of our own safety and security.
Give up Harsh Words and Judgments — In his Lenten message to Catholics, Pope Leo XIV also encouraged the faithful to abstain from “words that offend and hurt our neighbor” and “rash judgments.” Lent is a good time to pay attention to both overt and covert ways we seek power over others, and whenever we notice ourselves doing these things, to repent. This might include behaviors like gossip, deceit, complaining, accusations, blame shifting, gaslighting, shaming, slander, and passive aggression.
Give up Isolation — Between COVID, the rise of social media, and the spread of AI, our sense of the Commons has all but eroded, leaving many people isolated, lonely, and cut off from any real sense of what it means to be a human living in community with other humans. This distorted view of reality has had disastrous effects on our mental health and our ability to function as a democracy. Intentionally finding regular opportunities to be in community with other human beings who are different from you, in real life (yes, in person!), is one way to start cultivating a remembrance of our shared humanity, while challenging the assumptions and fears we have developed in our isolation about “others.”
Things To Take Up
For those who would prefer to do something for Lent (rather than not do something), here are some ideas:
PRAYER — Prayer is the third “pillar of Lent.” If you do not already do so, consider setting aside a particular time each day for prayer.
Silent Prayer: Taking time to sit silently with God is one of the best ways to develop real self-awareness while training yourself to be at rest in God’s love and mercy. Centering prayer is an excellent tool to introduce this practice for those just getting started. It teaches us the skill of humbly returning our attention to God, over and over.
The Daily Office: The Book of Common Prayer has prayer liturgies for morning, noonday, evening, and bedtime. The Mission of St. Clare and Venite are two app resources that can help you learn the format and navigate the readings for each day. The Daily Office can be read as a family or as an individual. When praying by yourself, the call-and-response format is a reminder that we are not praying alone, but joined by people all over the world who are praying this ancient liturgy of the hours.
Other Ways of Praying: The Christian tradition offers an abundance of spiritual practices you might want to learn about and try, including the Daily Examen, the Jesus Prayer, praying with rosary/prayer beads/prayer ropes, praying with icons, welcoming prayer, and many others. Journaling, prayer doodles, or just a good old-fashioned conversations with God are also always good go-to practices for when you don’t want to overcomplicate things.
DEVOTIONAL READING — Read a verse of Scripture each day and meditate on it through journaling, artmaking, or lectio divina. The Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox churches all offer daily lectionary calendars for each day of Lent.
Pray As You Go: A faithful group of British Jesuits maintain this website (and app!) that offers high-quality audio recordings of guided meditations on daily Scripture passages that are rooted in the Ignatian tradition.
Devotional Books: There are a number of devotionals that can be read for daily inspiration and reflection. Some of my favorites for Lent include:
A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent by Walter Brueggemann
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter by Plough Publishing
The Way of Thomas Merton: A Prayer Journey Through Lent by Robert Inchausti
Hunger for Righteousness: A Lenten Journey Towards Intimacy with God and Loving Our Neighbor by Phoebe Farag Mikhail
Were You There? Lenten Reflections on the Spirituals by Luke Powery
Bless the Lent We Actually Have: 40 Days to Reflect, Pray, and Bless Our Imperfect Lives by Kate Bowler
A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent by Christine Valters Paintner
MUSIC — Some of you may already be familiar with my “Annum” playlist project, which weaves the moods and themes of the agricultural and liturgical seasons into a series of 8 curated playlists of (non-AI!) background music for music therapy, reflection, and healing. Below are two playlists to accompany you for the liturgical season of Lent:
What if I mess up?
If you break your fast for whatever reason, the first thing to do is not despair! Reflect honestly on what happened and why, and then re-commit to your practice with greater self awareness. Do you need more support? Do you need to be more realistic about your limitations? Do you need to adjust your fast in light of what you have learned?
Remember, the whole purpose of our Lenten journey is not perfection but an honest confrontation with ourselves and with reality. Your fast cannot ruined by mistakes, but only by the hidden pride that makes us want to either justify ourselves and rationalize our choices, or just give up completely.
Why are There Two Easters? Whose Lent Do I Follow?
Here’s some bonus content for those of you who want to really go down the rabbit hole. Many people, when first becoming acquainted with the phenomenon of Christianity find the perplexing number of denominations and cultural expressions that have emerged in the past 2,000 years to be daunting at best. But the question of why different churches observe the most important Christian holiday on two different dates is something that still confuses many faithful, lifelong Christians.
For the first three centuries of Christianity, there was no fixed date for Easter. It was celebrated alongside the Jewish Passover, which always falls on the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. In the early days of the church, many Christians were still practicing Jews, so the anniversary of the resurrection was celebrated either on the day of the Passover, or on the following Sunday. Jewish fasting rituals in preparation for the Passover gradually evolved into a Christian tradition of fasting in preparation for Easter.
By the time Christianity was adopted as the official state religion of Rome in the fourth century, however, Jewish influence in the empire had been violently suppressed, and Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism had developed in two distinctly different directions. The celebration of the Passover was no longer practiced in many regions, leading to confusion about when the feast of the Resurrection should be celebrated. And so in the year 325, bishops at the Council of Nicea officially agreed that the celebration of the resurrection should be held on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon that occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. This was also when the bishops decided to officially institute a 40-day season of fasting to precede the Paschal celebration.
Over the last 1700 years, however, things have changed quite a bit in terms of our understanding of astronomical events. Historically, the Spring Equinox was observed every year on March 21st, but the astronomical equinox, as it turns out, varies slightly from year to year, falling between March 19th and March 22nd. Similarly, the ancient Greek system that was used to determine the date of the full moon was based on approximations that do not always line up precisely with the astronomical full moon, which can now be calculated down to the minute. So a distinction also now has to be made between the actual astronomical full moon, and what’s known as the “ecclesiastical full moon,” which is still used to calculate the date for Easter.
To make matters worse, in the 16th century European astronomers discovered that the calendar system everyone had been using since 45 BCE (known as the “Julian calendar”) contained a critical mathematical error: the observance of too many “leap” days had resulted in an accumulation of 11 minutes and 14 seconds per year. By the 16th century, the distance between “March 21st” and the actual observable Spring Equinox was off by a whole 10 days! After consulting with the best astronomers of the time to understand the problem and correct it moving forward, Pope Gregory XIII issued in a new calendar (the “Gregorian calendar”) in 1582, which deleted the extra days from the month of October.
Unfortunately, due to ongoing theological and cultural tensions between the Eastern and Western churches, the updated Gregorian calendar still has not been adopted for liturgical use by most Eastern Orthodox Christians, even though nearly all of the Eastern Orthodox countries (including Greece, Turkey, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Bohemia) have already switched to the Gregorian calendar for their civic time.
The result is that for the last 400 years, Eastern and Western churches have, for the most part, celebrated Easter on two different dates, with the exception of certain years when the two calendars just so happen to align (which occurred in 2025 and will happen again in 2028). The distance between the two calendars continues to drift more and more every year, with the Julian calendar now lagging behind the Gregorian calendar by a whopping 13 days. Efforts to resolve this matter are ongoing, and mostly face-palm inducing:
Both traditions also have slightly different ways of numbering the days of Lent, even though they are both built around the same idea of spending 40 days in the wilderness with Jesus prior to Easter. But which days they start on, which days “count,” and what kinds of fasting rules apply for which days varies between the two traditions. Here’s a quick look at the main differences:
Roman Catholic Lent: 40 + 6 days
40 fasting days (includes Holy Week) + 6 “cheat” days
For most people living in the U.S., this is the version of Lent that is the most accessible and the easiest to practice, because it is derived from the historical traditions that developed in the “Latin” or Roman Church in Western Europe, which sought to adjust the historic practices of the ancient church for the sake of more widespread accessibility. Accordingly, this is also the calendar that is recognized by Anglican/Episcopal churches, along with some Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian congregations, and other Protestant Christians who choose to practice Lent.
In this tradition, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which falls 7 weeks prior to Easter Sunday. Ash Wednesday is a uniquely Western church tradition. The first reference to a liturgical “Day of Ashes” dates back to the 8th century in the Gregorian Sacramentary, but it did not become a common practice in Latin-speaking churches until the 11th century reforms of Pope Urban II. The 40 days of Lent observed in the Western tradition are indicated below in purple:
Note that in this tradition, Holy Week is included in Lent, but Sundays don’t count towards the 40 penitential days (which is why you end up with technically a 46-day season that starts on a Wednesday). This tradition is derived from the theology of the weekly liturgical cycle, which considers every Sunday to be like a “mini-Easter.” All Sundays are therefore considered “Feast Days” even during Lent (which also means they function as “cheat days” — days on which you are allowed to break your fast!).
Roman Catholic Fasting Rules
Lenten fasting in the Roman tradition is simple, accessible, and relatively tame compared to the traditions of the Eastern Church (which are both incredibly tame when compared to Islamic fasting rules during Ramadan!). In the Western church, there are only two obligatory fasting days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On fasting days, healthy people between the ages of 18-59 are expected to refrain from eating meat, and are encouraged to eat only one full meal, plus two smaller meals that together are not the equivalent of a full meal. In other words, even on “fasting” days you are still supposed to eat something! That’s because the purpose of Lenten fasting is not self-deprivation, but re-orientation towards God.
In addition, everyone age 14 and older is encouraged to abstain from eating meat every Friday during Lent. That’s why so many cultures with large Roman Catholic populations have “Friday fish fry” events in late February and March. Fish isn’t considered “meat” because of ancient taxonomies that differentiated between warm-blooded and cold-blooded animal species. Also, fish was considered a staple for most poor people, whereas eating the flesh of warm-blooded animals like sheep and cows was considered a luxury. Again, the purpose of Lent is not to punish or deprive the body, but to learn how to distinguish between true needs and the temptations of luxury.
Eastern Orthodox “Great Lent”: 40 + 8 days
40 fasting days (no “cheat” days) + 1 day + Holy Week
If, like most people in the U.S., you aren’t familiar with Eastern Orthodox Christianity, you are probably prone to think of it in either an overly romanticized way as an exotic relic of the ancient world, or from a more judgmental perspective that is rooted either in Western Christianity’s insistence on the centrality of Rome or Protestant critiques of the early church councils (or both). I am grateful that I was able to study church history with Romanian Orthodox priest Fr. John A. McGuckin while at Union Theological Seminary, through whom I befriended many wonderful Orthodox Christians, theologians, and scholars that challenged my own assumptions about this living faith tradition and its varied cultural expressions.
I only have enough knowledge about Eastern church traditions to appreciate how much I don’t know, but I can explain the basics of how Great Lent works in the Orthodox tradition, and how it differs from Western church traditions:
One of the main differences is that in Eastern Orthodox churches, the 40 days of Great Lent do not include Holy Week, which is treated as it’s own special season. Lent is therefore a full 40-day season prior to Palm Sunday. The other big difference is that Sundays definitely “count” in Orthodoxy’s Lenten season, which begins on a Monday, known as “Clean Monday,” and ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. The 40 days of Lent are also bookended by two special days: “Forgiveness Sunday” inaugurates the season of Lent by highlighting the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve from Genesis 2-3, and “Lazarus Saturday” tells the story of Lazarus as a prefiguring of Christ’s Resurrection.
Eastern Orthodox Fasting Rules
Fasting in the Orthodox tradition can be complex, but it is rarely practiced in isolation. One fasts as part of a community. Even more so than in the Roman tradition, fasting is not approached as a punishment of the body but as a kind of school for the soul, by confronting us with our habits of consumption, distraction, and indulgence in order to gain better clarity about what are true needs are. The Orthodox not only fast during Lent, but at various points throughout the year as part of the normal rhythm of their Christian practice.
The church calendar for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America provides a helpful key that explains the different fasting rules for each day. For most weekdays in Lent, a “strict fast” is held — which means refraining from meat, fish, oil, wine, dairy, and eggs. It is essentially a vegan diet. There are no “cheat days” in the Eastern tradition, but Saturdays & Sundays are still both honored as feast days by allowing wine and oil on weekends. On the Feast of the Annunciation and Palm Sunday, fish is allowed in addition to wine and oil to honor the special celebratory nature of these two days.
For all of the liturgical traditions (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican/Episcopal), Holy Week culminates in a special 3-day celebration known as the Paschal Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday move through a re-enactment of Christ’s final supper with his friends, his arrest and sentencing by Pilate, his crucifixion, death, and burial, his descent into hell, and his glorious resurrection.
In Eastern Orthodox churches, the Great Vigil lasts literally all night long, and culminates with a great celebratory meal on Easter morning, at which everyone breaks the fast of Great Lent together in community. In other words, the shared joy of the resurrection is greatly heightened by the shared experience of fasting in the Eastern tradition.
Lent is a Living Tradition
One thing that it is important to remember about Lent is that it is meant to be practiced as part of a community. Christianity was never meant to be practiced by individuals in isolation for the sake of personal benefits. Even the early desert hermits quickly came to realize that it was better for most of them to gather in religious communities to support one another, rather than trying to go it alone.
Up until the Protestant Reformation, the Christian faith tradition was largely passed down mimetically — in communities of monastics, clergy, and lay elders who had learned to embody the way of Jesus through applied praxis in real life and in real community contexts. The saints who are honored in these traditions are not necessarily people who lived perfectly moral lives, but those whose lives moved demonstrably in the direction of God, and helped others do the same.
Which is also to say that the best way to learn about how to practice Lent is to actually visit a Christian community that observes the liturgical seasons, where you can connect with seasoned elders in the faith who can support you in your journey. This includes Anglican (Episcopal), Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches (some other Protestant denominations practice variations of Lent, but it largely depends on the congregation). I am an Episcopalian, and my husband is an Episcopal priest, so obviously I’m biased… but the Episcopal church is by far the most open, affirming, and accessible option for exploring liturgical Christianity within in the United States.
But even if you aren’t ready to connect with a community and just want to explore Lent on your own this year, remember that you are never alone in your walk with God. Even when we are alone in the wilderness, we are always being guided by the Trinity, the communion of Saints who have walked this way before us, and the prayers of people from around the world who are also seeking to live their lives more humbly and genuinely from the posture of kenosis that Jesus modeled for us.
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Fourth century theologian and patriarch St. John Chrysostom once preached: “The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. In fact, the rich person who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery… all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally. The proof of this is all around us. Look at the succulent fruits which the trees and bushes produce. Look at the fertile soil which yields each year such an abundant harvest….The rich may claim that they own many fields in which fruits and grain grow, but it is God who causes seeds to sprout and mature. The duty of the rich is to share the harvest of their fields with all who work in them, and with all in need.” (from On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom, edited by Robert Van der Weyer).