What is Lent?

Wonderful posts on this topic are at Life in My Domestic Church and in By Sun and Candlelight. Don't forget the new Lenten Blog, These Forty Days as another great resource, as well as Catholic Culture.org, and there's my personal favorite, Around the Year with the Trapp Family.Here is a great thought from this blog,

"We are not fasting in commemoration of Our Lord’s fast of forty days, but are
imitating Him in his fast of preparation — preparation for His great work of
Redemption. It is the same with us. Once a year we take forty days out of the
three hundred and sixty-five, and we too fast in preparation: in preparation for
the commemoration of our Redemption.
We all should get together and work toward the restoration of the meaning of Lent. People nowadays see in it just a gloomy time full of “must nots.” That is a great pity, because Lent is a solemn season rich in hidden mysteries. We must also keep in mind that Lent is only a part of the great Easter season, that it is for Easter what Advent was for Christmas, and that Lent taken by itself would make no more sense than Advent without Christmas at its end. Therefore, we should let Holy Mother Church take us by the hand and lead us — not each soul alone, but the whole family as a
group — away from the noise of the world into a forty-day retreat."