These 40 Days

As Lent is coming to an end, it doesn’t feel like Holy Week. I am not logging hours at church. In fact, I haven’t entered a church in weeks, probably for the longest time in my life. I haven’t received any sacraments in a month. The build-up to Easter hasn’t been there, because the “long Lent” continues after Sunday.

Lent is supposed to be 40 days of penance before Easter. The word comes from Old Saxon, lentin, which means lengthen, as in the lengthening of days. In Spanish it is called Cuaresma; you can see the Latin root of this word alluding to 40. In Latin, Lent is Quadragesima, “the fortieth part.”

Forty days appears over and over again in the Bible as a time of patience, waiting, preparation, and penance. Noah and his family were on the ark for 40 days of rain and then waited 40 days before releasing the bird. Goliath challenged David for 40 days before David slew him. Moses spent 40 days on Mt. Sinai. Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert before beginning his ministry.

There is another, more secular, period of 40 days: quarantine. In 1377, as plague crept through Europe (after the major wave in the 1340s), Italy began keeping ships suspected of carrying disease in isolation for a period of time, 40 days. This gave time for any latent cases on board to reveal themselves and kept the port city from becoming infected. In Italian it was called quaranta giorni, “space of 40 days.” It was a period of waiting, waiting to see if the ship was infected, waiting to see if the sailors would be allowed onshore, waiting to see if disease was coming.

Now we’re effectively in quarantine too. The virus has a long incubation period, so after every interaction begins a waiting game—Was I infected? Is the disease already here? When will this period end? When does life return to normal?

This quarantine will go beyond Easter Sunday. It may go beyond 40 days. We will continue to wait, to prepare, to practice patience and penance. It is a slowed time, when doing less is called for. The days are lengthening, stretching out before us. Close your door. Travel inwardly. Wait for the Resurrection.