ITEMS OF INTEREST
Lent
The period before Easter has gradually taken on the same character for all Christians. It has become a time for renewed commitment and self-discipline. As a part of of that Self-discipline, christians abstain from certain foods and luxuries to help them remember how much Christ gave up for us. They also devote themselves more fully to prayer and charity. 

Often a heaviness and g;
loom seems to hang over Lent, but is should not like that. The word Lent itself comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for spring, the time when the days lengthen. As we approach the spring equinox and Easter day, our lives should be filled with light as we come closer to Christ's light.

Some of the Sundays in Lent have taken on a special character because of the readings assigned to them. The second Sunday in Lent, for example is "Abraham Sunday" because the Old testament reading that day always speaks of Abraham. In the same way, the fourth Sunday in Lent is sometimes celebrated as "Mothering Sunday." The readings used on that day Sunday until the 1979 Prayer Book spoke of "Jerusalem...the mother os us all." In medieval England, apprentices were given time off on that Sunday to go home to visit their mothers.
Source: Christopher L. Webber, Welcome to Sunday (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing 2003) pp. 49, 50.