40-Day Pilgrimage Brings Promise

The number 40 appears more than 140 times in the Bible, usually to alert us to a time of challenge, change or testing.

In Noah’s time, it rained 40 days and 40 nights; in Moses’ day, the Hebrew people wandered in the desert for 40 years; Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God after receiving the law (Exodus 24:18); Moses sent Abner and a group of spies into Canaan for 40 days to investigate the Promised Land (Numbers 13:25). Deborah, the only female judge of the people of Israel, ruled for 40 years after she successfully led the people against the Canaanite army.

Centuries later, the giant Goliath taunted the Hebrews twice a day for 40 days before David slew him (1 Samuel 17:16).  Kings Saul, David and Solomon each ruled for 40 years. The prophet Elijah traveled into the desert for 40 days, sustained by the food given him by an angel, until he reached the “mountain of God,” Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).

 The number 40 is woven into our daily lives in many ways: We often work a 40 hour week; a refreshing nap takes only 40 winks; some say, “life begins at 40”; the 40th year is the height of man’s life; 40 years came to represent a generation; the Jewish Talmud teaches that a person moves into another stage of life (noted for wisdom or reason) at the age of 40.
 Since the 4 ^th century, Lent has been a 40-day journey, once known as the Quadragesima (the 40 days). The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 540 notes: “By the solemn 40 days of Lent the church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert.”

For Christians, the number 40 is a reminder of Jesus. Forty days after Christmas, Jesus was presented in the Temple. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert. Jesus also spent 40 hours in the tomb before his Resurrection, and after his Resurrection, there were 40 days before his Ascension. After the 40 days of Easter, the newly baptized in the RCIA process experience the mystagogia, just as the disciples lived in the fullness of the Risen Lord.

From Jesus’ 40 hours in the tomb, later Catholics developed the 40 Hours Devotion (based on the tradition that Jesus was buried at 3 p.m. on Friday and rose again at 6 a.m. on Sunday). These 40 hours spent in continuous prayers before the Blessed Sacrament honor Jesus’ time in the tomb and the hours that the disciples spent in sorrow and prayer and in the darkness of confusion and fear. These 40 Hours of prayer profess our belief in the promise of the Resurrection.

Jesus, after a 40-day testing period in the desert, entered into warfare with the devil, and with all with the powers of evil. This was a defining moment in Jesus’ life, mission, and ministry and for the salvation of the whole world. If Jesus had given in to temptations of the devil’s tactics, we would be lost. Satan tried his bag of tricks on Jesus but did not prevail.

This spiritual heritage of the number 40 deepens our Lenten experience. Lent is a time of challenge and testing, of confronting sin and Satan, and of growing deeper in faith and wisdom.

The experience of a 6-week Lenten desert retreat can teach us wonderful things about ourselves in solitude: beautiful things, hurtful things, wounded things, secret things, and holy things. The Book of Proverbs 20:30 says , “Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways.” 

May the Lord strengthen our faith during this Lenten journey. In a world still governed by sin, pain, exile and death, may our hope be in Jesus’ promise that joy awaits those who follow Him faithfully to the end. May this Lenten springtime heal the winters of cynicism, our deserts of self-absorption, our wildernesses of despair and hopelessness.

This penitential season of Lent helps us to prepare for the glorious feast of Easter by discerning what we want our lives to be, what values we want to uphold, and what our meaning and purpose is. The psalmist sings “Good and upright is the Lord; thus He shows sinners the way” (Psalm 25:8). May these 40 days of Lent be a time of real growth, profound change, and deep transfiguration in of our lives.