The 40 days Jesus Christ spent in the wilderness preparing for his sacrifice and death on the cross inspires the Lenten season. Enjoy these 40 inspirational Lent quotes, which might include giving up things, emphasizing prayer, drawing closer to God, planning for Easter, and discovering methods to care more for the welfare of others than for one's good. Visit us at bibilium.com, a Wholesome Christian Blog that caters to the spiritual needs of every member of the family.

2. “Lenten fasts make me feel better,
stronger, and more active than ever.”
— Catherine of Genoa

3. “Lent is a time for discipline, for
confession, for honesty, not because God
is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing
but because he wants us to know the joy
of being cleaned out, ready for all the
good things he now has in store.”
— N.T. Wright

4. “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the
mind, subjects one's flesh to the spirit,
renders the heart contrite and humble
scatters the clouds of concupiscence,
quenches the fire of lust, kindles the true
light of chastity.”
— St. Augustine

5. “Lent affords us the opportunity to search
the depths of our sin and experience the
heights of God’s love.”
— Chuck Colson

6. “The central focus of fasting remains to
draw near to God. It reveals sins from
which we must repent. Fasting is an act of
worship that changes our spiritual and
physical posture toward God.”
— Timothy Willard

7. “Lent is a time of going very deeply into
ourselves... What is it that stands
between us and God? Between us and our
brothers and sisters? Between us and life,
the life of the Spirit? Whatever it is, let us
relentlessly tear it out, without a
moment's hesitation.”
— Catherine Doherty

8. “As Lent is the time for greater love, listen
to Jesus' thirst...'Repent and believe'
Jesus tells us. What are we to repent? Our
indifference, our hardness of heart. What
are we to believe? Jesus thirsts even now,
in your heart and in the poor -- He knows
your weakness. He wants only your love,
wants only the chance to love you. ”
— Mother Teresa

9. “The command to love and serve—not
merely tolerate—each other requires
more commitment and sacrifice than we
care to give, and so we do the polite
minimum from afar. The seasons of Lent
and Easter bring thoughts of surrender
and sacrifice.”
— Nana Dolce

10. “At its simplest, Lent is a season where
you commit to a deeper holiness and
more vibrant discipleship.”
— George Sinclair

11. “Through the stark and solemn Liturgy of the
Friday we call “Good”, we stand at the Altar of
the Cross where heaven is rejoined to earth and
earth to heaven, along with the Mother of the
Lord. We enter into the moment that forever
changed - and still changes - all human History,
the great self gift of the Son of God who did for
us what we could never do for ourselves by in
the words of the ancient Exultet, “trampling on
death by death”. We wait at the tomb and
witness the Glory of the Resurrection and the
beginning of the New Creation.”
— Deacon Keith Fournier

12. “You could say that prayer without fasting
is like boxing with one hand tied behind
your back, and that fasting without prayer
is, well, dieting.”
— Matt Fradd

13. “What we see in Christ is sacrificial love.
Merciful love. Love that values the well-
being of others above itself. Love that will
generously and fully pour itself out,
whatever the cost, in order that the
beloved might benefit, flourish and
thrive.”
— Krish Kandiah

14. “When people give up chocolate or meat or
alcohol or coffee, it is not because we Christians
think that if we enjoy something, it must be
bad. Coffee, meat, alcohol and especially
chocolate are very good things that show God’s
goodness, creativity, and provision. Of course,
Christians ought to be interested and working
toward breaking habits of sin — gossip, lust,
judgment, anger, pride, and so on — but this is
called repentance, which is certainly not limited
to Lent.”
— Tish Harrison Warren

15. “There are three elements that are almost
always part of Lent: prayer, giving
something up, and giving something
back.”
— Elizabeth Hyndman

16. “We need to take time to connect with
the poor, resist our unceasing cravings,
and pray. But we also need to gather with
friends and family, share in God’s good
provision, eat delicious food, tell stories
that encourage us all, and celebrate the
risen Lord.”
— Chris Seay

17. “Lenten practices of giving up pleasures
are a good reminder that the purpose of
life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is
to attain a perfect life, all truth and
undying ecstatic love—which is the
definition of God. In pursuing that
happiness, we find happiness.”
— Fulton J. Sheen

18. “Self-denial means knowing only Christ,
and no longer oneself. It means seeing
only Christ, who goes ahead of us, and no
longer the path that is too difficult for
us… . Self-denial is saying only: He goes
ahead of us; hold fast to him.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

19. “During these 40 days, let me put away all
my pride. Let me change my heart and
give up all that is not good within me. Let
me love God with all that I am and all that
I have.”
— Genesis Grain

20. “While I am asking God how I should
observe an upcoming Lenten season, I
may remember where I spiritually was
during Lent the previous year and reflect
on what has changed and what has stayed
the same. I hear and read the familiar
stories about Jesus as he approached the
cross and am reminded that while my
circumstances change, the truths of the
gospel remain the same.”
— Charlotte Donlon

21. “Show me your hands. Do they have scars
from giving? Show me your feet. Are they
wounded in service? Show me your heart.
Have you left a place for divine love?”
— Fulton Sheen

22. “The goal of fasting is inner unity. This
means hearing, but not with the ear;
hearing, but not with the understanding;
it is hearing with the spirit, with your
whole being.”
— Father Thomas Merton

23. “Fasting is more about replacing than it is
about abstaining — replacing normal
activities with focused times of prayer
and feeding on the Word of God.”
— Gary Rohrmayer

24. “Lent is a fitting time for self-denial; we
would do well to ask ourselves what we
can give up in order to help and enrich
others by our own poverty. Let us not
forget that real poverty hurts: no self-
denial is real without this dimension of
penance. I distrust a charity that costs
nothing and does not hurt.”
— Pope Francis

25. “Fasting is more about longing for the
power and presence of Jesus than
restricting our appetites.”
— Gary Rohrmayer

26. “Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love
the world’s goods. Love of the world
squeezes out love for the Father.
Practically everything that goes on in the
world—wanting your own way, wanting
everything for yourself, wanting to appear
important—has nothing to do with the
Father. It just isolates you from him.”
— Eugene H. Peterson

27. “Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God
penetrate our life and in this way to know
the fundamental truth: who we are,
where we come from, where we must go,
what path we must take in life.”
— Pope Benedict XVI

28. “As you mourn for your sins and
weaknesses this Ash Wednesday through
fasting, mourning and weeping, may you
be truly transformed from your heart.”
— John Tribes

29. “Without the breath of God, we are but
dust. On the brink of Lent, Ash
Wednesday helps us remember the life
and death stakes in our own stories.”
— Carolyn Arends

30. “Lent is like a long 'retreat' during which
we can turn back into ourselves and listen
to the voice of God, in order to defeat the
temptations of the Evil One.”
— Pope Benedict XVI

31. “The Cross is the word through which God has
responded to evil in the world. Sometimes it
may seem as though God does not react to evil,
as if he is silent. And yet, God has spoken, he
has replied, and his answer is the Cross of
Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness.
It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God,
in judging us, loves us. Remember this: God, in
judging us, loves us. If I embrace his love then I
am saved, if I refuse it, then I am condemned,
not by him, but my own self, because God never
condemns, he only loves and saves.”
— Pope Francis

32. “Fasting confirms our utter dependence
upon God by finding in Him a source of
sustenance beyond food.”
— Dallas Willard

33. “It is not just about giving up our favorite
food but it's about going further and
giving up things like hatred and
unforgiveness. You need to clean your
heart and prepare yourself for purity.”
— Amanda Jobs

34. “No act of virtue can be great if it is not
followed by advantage for others. So, no matter
how much time you spend fasting, no matter
how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat
ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to
others, you do nothing great.”
— John Chrysostom

35. “Remember that Lent and Ash Wednesday are
not just about putting away the bad things. It is
more about creating good things and helping
the poor and the needy, being kind to people,
and much more.”
— Jacob Winters

36. “Fasting makes sense if it really chips way at our
security, as as a consequence, benefits someone
else, if it helps us cultivate the style of the good
Samaritan who bent down to his brother in
need and took care of him.”
— Pope Francis

37. “Although Lent is often the excuse people use to
test drive a new diet or make good on their New
Year’s resolution, that is not its purpose. Lent is a
time when we prepare for Holy Week by meditating
on our fragility before God and our desperate need
for a Savior. It is a time when we remember why
Jesus had to die. During Lent, we surrender an idol
that has assumed improper centrality in our lives,
and then we watch as our souls shrink and groan
when that idol is taken away. We understand with
new clarity that our hearts are indeed ‘idol
factories,’ and that we would be hopelessly self-
destructive and broken had Christ not intervened.”
— Sharon Hodde Miller

38. “Give something, however small, to the
one in need. For it is not small to one who
has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if
we have given what we could.”
— St. Gregory Nazianzen

39. “Our sacrifices in this season are so
minuscule as to be laughable, except that
our Father seems only too willing to use
our tiny offerings as portals for his grace.
Every hunger pang or caffeine craving
becomes a holy prompt—pray, trust,
surrender. The whole season becomes a
bit delicious with anticipation: Easter is
coming!”
— Carolyn Arends

40. “Lent comes providentially to reawaken
us, to shake us from our lethargy.”
— Pope Francis

41. “Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as
something that happened and still happens to us. For
each one of us received the gift of that new life and the
power to accept it and to live by it. It is a gift which
radically alters our attitude toward everything in this
world, including death. It makes it possible for us
joyfully to affirm: "Death is no more!" Oh, death is still
there, to be sure and we still face it and someday it will
come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His
own death Christ changed the very nature of death,
made it a passage—a "passover," a "Pascha"—into the
Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies
into the ultimate victory. "Trampling down death by
death," He made us partakes of His Resurrection. This is
why at the end of the Paschal Matins we say: "Christ is
risen and life reigneth! Christ is risen and not one dead
remains in the grave!”
— Alexander Schmemann

42. Visit us at bibilium.com, a
Wholesome Christian Blog
that caters to the spiritual
needs of every member
of the family.