Lent

  Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial— for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

According to the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent forty days fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan.  Thus, Lent is described as being forty days long.  The six Sundays in this period are not counted because each one represents a "mini-Easter," a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.

The number forty has many Biblical references

• the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God (Exodus 24:18);
• the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8);
• the forty days and nights God sent rain in the great flood of Noah (Genesis 7:4);
• the forty years the Hebrew people wandered in the desert while traveling to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:33);
• the forty days Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh in which to repent (Jonah 3:4). 
• Jesus retreated into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days, and was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-2, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-2).

  He overcame all three of Satan's temptations by citing scripture to the devil, at which point the devil left him, angels ministered to Jesus, and he began his ministry. Jesus further said that his disciples should fast "when the bridegroom shall be taken from them" (Matthew 9:15), a reference to his Passion. Since, presumably, the Apostles fasted as they mourned the death of Jesus, Christians have traditionally fasted during the annual commemoration of his burial.

 It is the traditional belief that Jesus lay for forty hours in the tomb which led to the forty hours of total fast that preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church (the biblical reference to 'three days in the tomb' is understood as spanning three days, from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, rather than three 24 hour periods of time).

The forty days in Lent are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbor). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations.