Fastenzeit#

Lent, in the Catholic liturgical calendar the forty-day period before Easter, i.e. from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. Lenten practices include Lenten sermons, Stations of the Cross devotions, the veiling of altar-pieces and crucifixes with Lenten veils, and the reading of the Diocesan bishop's Lenten pastoral. Regarding popular customs, Lent, like Advent, is a "closed period" when Catholics refrain from dances and festive marriages.