According to Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Dictionary,  Lent is the liturgical season in preparation for Easter.  It lasts forty days during which fasting, prayer and almsgiving are encouraged for the faithful.   Forty days is first mentioned in the Canons of Nicaea, 325 A.D. possibly to remember the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert in preparation for His public ministry.

Daily Mass, the Sacrament of Penance, the devotion of the Stations of the Cross, works of charity and justice and acts of self-denial are highly recommended during Lent.