Nika Spaulding

Kay Daigle

Why celebrate Lent? In this episode of the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast, Nika Spaulding joins Kay Daigle to discuss all things Lent. Although we may think that Lent is only for Catholics, Anglicans and other liturgical churches, it isn't. Nor is it all about fasting. Celebrating Lent means focusing on Jesus as we prepare our hearts for Easter.

So how do we celebrate Lent? How does it work and who should participate in it? When did Christians begin celebrating this season? What are its benefits? What is fasting all about? How should we celebrate it? Nika deals with all of these questions.

We encourage you to plan ahead to participate in Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday, which occurs March 5 this year.

If you prefer you can watch this episode on video.

Recommended resources

Readings for Lent

N.T. Wright's Lent for Everyone series. This year is Lent for Everyone: Luke, Year C--A Daily Devotional

N.T. Wright's new devotional, From Wilderness to Glory: Lent and Easter for Everyone.

The Crucifixion by Fleming Rutledge

Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter.  Each day's devotional is an excerpt from a different author's work.

Music that draws you to Christ

Timestamps:

00:21 Introduction to Lent

05:13 Background of Lent

07:09 Fasting

10:29 Adding in spiritual rhythms during Lent

13:55 Preparing your heart, soul and mind for Easter

16:00 Lent calls us to reflect on the brevity of life

24:06 Other reflections during Lent

25:10 Lent involves community

26:44 Lent is an invitation to repentance & reconciliation

28:32 Suggestions for what to do, read, etc.

TranscriptKay >> Hi. I'm Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women. Welcome to this podcast and video episode of the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. We are so glad to have you with us today. Today, our topic is “Why Celebrate Lent?” and our guest speaker is Nika Spaulding. Welcome, Nika.

Nika >> Thanks, Kay. I'm excited to be.

Kay >> I’m always so happy when you join us. You give us such a depth and wealth of information, and it’s so encouraging and positive. A few months ago, and it seems like just yesterday, Nika and I recorded an episode “Why Celebrate Advent? We talked about why we thought that was a great thing for Christians to do. At that time, we decided we would do one on Lent as well.

And so here we are. It's already time. It doesn't seem right!

Nika >> Doesn't seem right. I feel like it was yesterday.

Kay >> I can't believe we're talking about Lent. And you know the day we're recording this, we still have a little bit of time. But still it's coming up and it won't be long before it's here.

Nika >>Yeah.

Kay >>  And I suppose since we talked about the fact that neither one of us had ever celebrated Advent until we were adults. You didn't grow up in the church, and I grew up in a non-liturgical church. And we just kind of thought that Catholics do that. We don’t; we're Protestant.

So I'm assuming that you and I are the same on Lent, that we didn't practice Lent until we were adults as well.

Nika >> Yeah, exact same. I would say the biggest difference was I probably didn't even know Advent existed until I was an adult. But Lent I did know because of the very thing you're talking about because I had buddies who are Catholic. I remember seeing them with ashes on their head and not being able to eat certain foods, and so I knew Lent existed. But to me it was this kind of bizarro thing that once a year my Catholic buddy's did.

That was the extent of what I understood about it.

Kay >> Yeah, and all my Catholic friends— I heard them at school talking about what are you giving up for Lent? What are you giving up for Lent? And I thought, this just seems . . .

Nika >> Yeah. Why would I give up anything?

Kay >> Why are you giving up anything? And they weren't real happy about it, so it didn't make me want to celebrate Lent. You know, I just,