When Lent and Ramadan Meet

Walking in Wilderness

This year Lent and Ramadan begin at the same time.

Something in me grows very quiet when I realize this. Across the world, people of different histories, prayers, and languages enter together into days of fasting, restraint, remembrance, and return. The paths are distinct, the stories are different, yet the movement of the heart leans in a similar direction.

People choose less in order to awaken more.

Lent recalls the forty days Yeshua spent in the wilderness after his baptism by Yohanan the Baptizer. The desert is not just a physical place, it is also an interior crossing. It is the place where distraction loosens and truth becomes audible. In that solitude Yeshua meets temptation, shadow, identity. What is false begins to fall away so that what is essential can stand. And ultimately, Yeshua receives his Ministry.

Ramadan invites a month in which hunger becomes consciousness. The daily fast sharpens remembrance of God, widens compassion, restores gratitude. Beneath abstaining from food lives a deeper longing, the desire to live aligned with the Divine, to allow sacred presence to breathe through ordinary life.

Fasting is not only about what we eat.

It is about attention.

Where is our energy flowing?
What consumes us?
What keeps the heart dispersed?

These holy weeks gather us back. We loosen our grip on excess, on noise, on the habits that scatter our interior life. Something in us begins to listen again.

The desert reveals itself as an emptiness that is rich. When we enter it, we release what is not necessary for love. We may fast from resentment, from endless comparison, from the constant reflex of distraction. We practice returning to alignment.

If sin is distance from truth, the wilderness retunes us.

The desert is also a womb. It receives us. It strips and protects at once. Identity softens; the masks fall; the heart becomes permeable. Beneath what feels like endurance, something new is forming. Quietly, invisibly, we are being prepared for a more faithful way of inhabiting our lives.

Lent opens towards resurrection.
Ramadan opens towards celebration and generosity.

What becomes clarified in restraint flowers into joy. The fast teaches us how to carry life more tenderly, how to act with greater responsibility, how to love without illusion.

And when immense communities walk this path simultaneously, something more than individual transformation occurs. A subtle atmosphere gathers around the planet. Humanity leans, even if unconsciously, toward humility. The possibility of mercy moves closer to the surface of things.

The convergence  illuminates communion. In this hour of shared purification, I feel the mantle of the Mother widening across the world, inviting humanity into a deeper remembrance of mercy, intimacy, and belonging.

This year I will also be leading a 40 day journey into the Desert, as I did last year, sharing a reflection for each day!

Lent begins on the 18th of February, and I will send out information for you to access this Sacred Journey. This is a Community Journey, free of charge, the only exchange that is asked for is respect towards the teachings and the participants.

Below you can watch a video of my favourite practice during lent!

AHAVA,

Ana Otero