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　Ash Wednesday came over again this year. The meaning of the ash is "repentance". It is important 46 days when I look back on this one year, and we who are weak change way of life and turn a heart to the direction of Christ again.

 

  Christmas fixes it with December 25, but changes "the Easter" by the year in "Lent". It becomes very after it, and it is after that Christmas came to be celebrated judging from a Christian viewpoint. But originally, as for the thing which Christianity conveys as Christianity, the center of the Christian faith begins from "Christ who revived" so that there is Paul to say saying "this is because it describes Christ who revived, and it tells".

 

  Therefore it does not seem to seem that it is too important because Easter is not celebrated in fixed days. However, this is important thing very much.

 

  There was the debate from many ancient times on establishing this, but it is said that on "the Vernal Equinox Day, the day on March 21 or first Sunday after the full moon (and I count it from the new moon the 14th day) on the first calendar after it" hits in a first Nike shop council basically in Easter. In addition, I think that it was the decision on an important day as there is the story to say that I was based after starting seeding and farming on this day.

 

  With the during forty days of the Lent, I show 40 days. There will be 46 days exactly on Sunday as it is the date not to calculate (I take it off from 40 days because it is an important day in commemoration of the revival of the master on Sunday). And it is words to be March 5 this year, and to count it from Ash Wednesday 46 days ago, and to express a period until the day before Easter.

 

  It is said that I prepare for Easter in this Lent, but thinks that it is that it is more correct to prepare for Holy Week (one week to memorialize the suffering and death from Jerusalem entry into a fortress of yes that happened in a Jewish genus state of the Roman Empire in about A.D. 29).

 

  A number of 40 is a word to hint at a special run-up in the Old Testament. For example, Moses wanders in the wilderness with people for 40 years, and Jonah prophesies it when a town dies out if I do not reform myself to people of the town of two neve within 40 days. Jesus spends it in a wilderness for 40 days before public life begins and fasts. It is the number of the preparations that deserve to be you if I prepare for pains of Christ and death and revival as I understand even the number to be called 40 in this way.

 

  Various 40 days are prepared for during this period even if I see it historically. I obliged it to a 40-hour fast at the first church before Easter. Furthermore, it was a tradition, the custom since the first church to hold the order of Holy Baptism of the adult for a revival vigil festival. A 40-hour record to tell to have fasted remains for the first sacred body in the first church.

 

  In the Catholic Church, there was a custom not to take the water either before the Holy Communion from after dinner on Saturday on the day before. I might want to convey that I said the preparations toward the first sacred body of the first heritage of foreign propagators. There is the teaching of the church that I stop that it eats now one hour ago three hours ago and drinks.

 

  However, that you do not follow whether you keep that time is not important thing, and it is a heart to be important. Holy Communion is important for we believer how and thinks that it was teaching to understand that I come to the center of the faith to bring up the heart as our believer. I fast before Holy Communion, and the meaning to perform Holy Communion with feeling of strain is one. Through Holy Communion to the next Holy Communion post of King (serving people, serving it), priesthood (participate in mass, and participate in the festival of the sacred sacrifice with a Catholic priest. It is to participate in participating in the sacrament of the sacred body), a prophecy job (telling the words to the person who does not know Christ with words and an act), and to carry out the duty as the person of Christ in society. I may only think that it is important for a person of the thought that carried out the duty as the believer because I participate in mass and did Holy Communion only to protect a form called one hour ago three hours ago.

 

  The concrete story can hear a fast before such a Holy Communion when I ask an old believer a story in Nagasaki, but there seems to be well little which I can explain about the meaning. It is an opinion to "have to cleanse heart and soul because important Jesus comes as for the believer" that can hear most. It is never a mistake, but after all seems to explain a one-tenth.

 

  I wrote that the first church gave godchildren an order for a 40-hour fast for the first sacred body at the top, but (from Saint Friday to a revival vigil festival) for later these 40 hours was postponed till six days (the reason is not identified) and came to be performed as a finally 6-week baptism run-up. Therefore, as for this Lent, it seems to have possibilities to be said that it is an established period for a baptized seeker after truth. It is the origin in Lent that I say that I came to demand a period of the moderation before the revival from all believers because the number of baptism applicants increases remarkably when it is the fourth century, and Christianity was recognized officially, and enough preparations for each one were not careful.

 

  About daisai, shosai

 

  In the Lent, the moderation of the meal was carried out traditionally, and the work of the compensation got advice and others. There is the history of the church saying that three points were recommended of prayer, a fast, the charity. The current Catholic Church tells that prayer for God, moderation for oneself, charity for another person are important. And daisai and shosai are recommended. daisai is to fast on Ash Wednesday and Saint Friday of the passion. The healthy believers from 18 years old to 60 years old must follow daisai. I have enough meals once a day on Ash Wednesday and Saint Friday and later once is light and fasts once again. Of shosai which will be sacrificed, but is sacrificed not eating the thing which always eat in the country for the country which does not eat meat big for the country which is written in the canon law that shosai is not to eat meat on every Friday and Ash Wednesday, but eats meat as for it think that protect it, and there is the. In addition, I can change it by performing work, faith line moderation of other forms of the compensation particularly the love virtue by a judgment of each person. In addition, a believer 14 years or older must follow shosai.

 

  I thought and wrote that I read as basic knowledge of the Catholic (universal) church.

Principal Michiharu Yamaguchi