QUARESMA E PÁSCOA: LENT AND EASTER: TIME FOR PRAYING AND CELEBRATING JESUS'S RESSURECTION

Lent is a forty-day season of preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. The season begins on Ash Wednesday, when pastors mark the foreheads of Christians with ashes as a reminder that we are created from dust and to dust we shall return.

During Lent we follow Jesus from his adult ministry through his suffering during Holy Week to his crucifixion and death on Good Friday. And we read the Psalms that foretold what happened during that week.

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, also called the Sunday of the Passion, and continues through Holy Thursday (when Holy Communion was instituted at the Last Supper) and Good Friday, when Jesus was tried, crucified, and buried.

Because the Last Supper was celebrated during the Feast of the Passover, which is calculated on the phases of the moon, Easter is called a movable feast. Lent is scheduled backwards from Easter. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox. The forty days of fasting and penitence during Lent do not include Sundays. Christians always celebrate Sunday as the day Jesus rose from the dead, so it is never a day of fasting.

Many Northern Europeans celebrate the day before Ash Wednesday, mardi gras (French for Fat Tuesday, also called Shrove Tuesday), by eating up everything good in the house that medieval Christians believed was inappropriate to eat during Lent (eggs, butter, cream, meat). This celebration has expanded into all sorts of festivals all over the world, although most modern Christians do eat some - or all - of those foods during Lent.

Lent is a time of stripping down to essentials, as each Christian focuses on his or her individual relationship with God. It is a time when Christians remember our baptisms, when Jesus washed away our sins, giving us newness of life to celebrate in the triumph of Palm Sunday and the glory of Easter. Many early Christians were baptized on Easter Sunday, so Lent became a special time of study and prayer in preparation for their baptisms. Later the entire congregation joined in the study and prayer as they looked forward to the anniversary of their baptisms on Easter.

SOURCE: http://www.sundayschoollessons.com/lent.htm

 HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaf_X9qSeVY

Just a simple video to ilustrate International Women's Day, showing the importance of women in our modern society and how things have changed for most of us.

Happy IWD!!!!!!!

Carmen

I LOVE JOKES!!!!!

Eu amo piadas... e em inglês, então, dá ainda mais prazer, porque às vezes requer muita atenção para entendê-las, já que muitas piadas envolvem trocadilhos, conhecimento de certos fatos históricos, etc. Mas com certeza ler e ouvir piadas em inglês é também uma forma de ampliar vocabulário, melhorar sua compreensão de texto, e se divertir, é claro!!! Seguem algumas piadas de um site bem bacana que é específico para quem está aprendendo inglês, e o link vai no final, para quem quiser ver mais. E há também podcasts em MP3 para você ouvir as apiadas, melhorando também sua habilidade de compreensão auditiva.

A: Aren't you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?
B: Yes I am, I married the wrong woman.

 
Teacher: Maria please point to America on the map.
Maria: This is it.
Teacher: Well done. Now class, who found America?
Class: Maria did.


A: Did you hear that a baby was fed on elephant's milk and gained twenty pounds in a week.
B: That's impossible. Whose baby?
A: An elephant's.

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted".
The next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."


Fred is 32 years old and he is still single.
One day a friend asked, "Why aren't you married? Can't you find a woman who will be a good wife?"
Fred replied, "Actually, I've found many women I wanted to marry, but when I bring them home to meet my parents, my mother doesn't like them."
His friend thinks for a moment and says, "I've got the perfect solution, just find a girl who's just like your mother."
A few months later they meet again and his friend says, "Did you find the perfect girl? Did your mother like her?"
With a frown on his face, Fred answers, "Yes, I found the perfect girl. She was just like my mother. You were right, my mother liked her very much."
The friend said, "Then what's the problem?"
Fred replied, "My father doesn't like her."

Did you have a good time?  So click on the links below and read more!
http://iteslj.org/c/jokes.html
http://www.ejokx.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
http://www.angelfire.com/on/topfen/jokes.html
http://www.englishclub.com/esl-jokes/index.htm


And remember: laughing is the best remedy for a long life!

Carmen