Great Lent begins today. It will last 48 days, from the Carnival to the Easter holiday, which this year will be celebrated on April 9.
The 40 days of Lent symbolize Christ's forty-day prayer, fasting, and penance in the desert.
During Lent, they consume exclusively plant-based food. During fasting, they give up certain foods, indulgent habits, talkativeness, lying, cursing, and other sins. Abstaining from food without turning away from evil is useless. In the "Sermon on the Mount," Christ says about fasting: “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matt. 6:16-18) ).
Great Lent has seven Sundays: Paradise Sunday, Exclusion Sunday, Prodigal Son Sunday, The Steward Sunday, Unjust Judge Sunday, Advent Sunday, and Palm Sunday. According to the folk tradition, on the day of Mid-Lent, they make unleavened bread or cake, in which they put a coin. According to tradition, a coin that falls into a person's hands brings good luck.
