Across Los Angeles — and the world — communities are entering a season of fasting and reflection. From Lent and Ramadan to Lunar New Year, each marks a time to pause, reset and reconnect.
It’s that shared sense of pause and intention that brought me into a mosque for the first time, to get ashes on my forehead among hundreds of immigrants in a church and to break my fast at a Cambodian Chinese joint in the San Gabriel Valley.
In a rare calendar collision, Lent and Ramadan are overlapping this month. Lent lasts 40 days, inviting Christians to contemplate, practice self-discipline and prepare spiritually for Easter, often through fasting or giving something up. Ramadan lasts about a month and follows the lunar calendar. During this time, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, engage in prayer and give to those in need, fostering empathy and spiritual growth. At the same time, Lunar New Year unfolds over several days, celebrating family, renewal and prosperity with food and rituals that mark the start of a new cycle.
At a time when the news feels like a tense, 1980s drumbeat — ICE raids in immigrant neighborhoods, images of Gaza reduced to rubble, rising tensions with Iran — the timing can feel eerily significant.
“It’s destiny,” a Muslim man named Ray told The LA Local outside Abubakr As Siddiq Mosque in West Adams. Ray did not want to use his last name for safety concerns.
“The people of Gaza are starving, and they will still fast for Ramadan,” Ray said. “With all the turmoil of the world, it’s important right now that we all come together.”
The fact that all three traditions are happening at the same time during a period of turmoil was also significant to Teresa, an immigrant who preferred not to share her last name over safety concerns.
“There are wars all over the world — in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe, but we are also at war here,” she told The LA Local on Ash Wednesday at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in downtown LA.
“The government here is at war with the Latino community, so it’s important at times like these to seek refuge in God, and Lent is all about that,” she explained.
Three traditions. Three different histories. All entering seasons of renewal, restraint or recommitment during a moment defined by instability.
This rare alignment of the calendars is easy to see in Los Angeles, where a mosque, a Catholic church and a strip mall with red lanterns can all sit in the same neighborhood.
Here is what I learned about these ancient systems still quietly shaping modern life.
Fasting from dawn to sunset
For some, Ramadan this year started on Feb. 18th, but most people began their fast before sunrise on Feb 19th because, as always, it all depends on the notoriously picky moon sighting.
Ramadan is the holiest month in Islam. It commemorates the period in the seventh century when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. According to Ray, Muhammad is not God. He is a messenger.
The Islamic calendar is lunar, following the cycles of the moon rather than the sun. Because of that, Ramadan shifts roughly 10 to 11 days earlier each year on the Gregorian calendar. From dawn to sunset, observant Muslims fast: No food. No water. No coffee. No smoking. No sex.
“No, we cannot have intercourse with our partner, even,” Ray explained while kneeling across from me inside the mosque.
But the fast isn’t only about what you give up, he added. It’s about humility, patience and heightened awareness.
I told Ray I was also fasting. Not for spiritual reasons but to lose a pound or two.
“It actually helps you a lot physically,” Ray explained, pointing out the fact that NBA legend Hakeem Olahuwon, a Muslim, had better stats while practicing Ramadan.
Each evening, families and communities gather for iftar, the meal that breaks the fast. Traditionally, it starts with dates and water, then continues with a full dinner. Beyond nourishing the body, iftar is a moment to connect with family and friends after a day of fasting. Some even break their fast at a mosque, and many head there afterward for extended night prayers.
That sense of shared surveying takes on extra weight this year for Ray because of “the relentless war in Gaza.”
“But Ramadan isn’t political,” he said. “It’s about unity and love.”
He handed me a copy of the Quran in Spanish. “I think you’ll connect to this version more — Arabic has a lot in common with Spanish,” he added.
‘The devil is locked up’
After I left the mosque, I jumped on the phone with Rida Hamida, co-founder of Taco Trucks at Every Mosque, a grassroots mutual aid group that unites Muslim and Latino communities in California by serving free halal tacos at mosques.
Hamida said this year’s Ramadan is unusual in a quiet but meaningful way.
“This is the first time since the 1990s that we’ve had a winter Ramadan,” Hamida said. “It’s actually helpful. Fasting during shorter days is a little easier. It’s a small respite before Ramadan shifts back into late spring and summer.”
Like Ray, Hamida emphasized that Ramadan isn’t just about abstaining from food. It’s about intention — and mercy.
There are exemptions built into the practice. People with health issues or who need medication during the day are also exempt. Pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding and women on their periods do not fast.
“We jokingly call it a little vacation from fasting,” Hamida said. “It’s actually a great thing to be a woman during Ramadan.”
Spiritually, the month is believed to amplify both accountability and grace.
“Good deeds count tenfold. The devil is locked up,” Hamida said. “That’s why you see activism really heightened during this time. People are trying to become better versions of themselves.”
Hamida said Ramadan also reveals how diverse Muslim communities in Los Angeles really are. That push toward self-improvement, she said, often surprises people who don’t expect the diversity of Muslim communities in Los Angeles.
“Lots of Asians are Muslim. A lot of Latinos are fasting too — they are the fastest growing Muslim community in California,” Hamida said. “It really debunks stereotypes.”
For Hamida, the convergence of Ramadan, Lent and Lunar New Year feels like good timing for activism.
“It’s a renewal,” she said. “You’re reflecting on your obligation to God, to your family, to your community. And with everything happening all at once, it really does feel like this is a time for justice.”
Ceremony, community and churros
In stark contrast to the quiet of the mosque, the mood inside the lavishly adorned Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles was boisterous. The historic Catholic church is also known as La Placita Church because of its central location in the Placita Olvera.
A two-person band played while hundreds of people waited their turn in line to get ashes placed on their foreheads. The ashes are typically made from burned palm branches saved from the previous Palm Sunday.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Teresa said. “It really made me feel hope during a hard time.”
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent in Western Christianity, a 40-day season leading up to Easter. The tradition dates back more than a thousand years, rooted in early Christian practices of repentance and preparation.
Like many practicing Catholics, Teresa doesn’t eat meat on Ash Wednesday or on any Friday during Lent.
“We eat a lot of fish during this period,” she said, standing near the churro vendor in the church’s garden.
Lent is a season of fasting or self-denial. Some people abstain from meat on Fridays. Others give up sugar, alcohol or social media. The number 40 echoes biblical stories of trial and transformation — Jesus fasting in the wilderness, the Israelites wandering in the desert.
This year, Ash Wednesday unfolds as immigration enforcement actions continue.
“I think it’s much more meaningful this year because of everything going on,” Jesus Gonzalez told The LA Local. “That’s why I wanted to come here to get the ashes and be closer to God.”
Gonzalez, who grew up in Glendale but lives in East LA, said it was important to come to La Placita Church because of its historical significance.
La Placita church stands on the original plaza of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, the Spanish colonial settlement that became the city of Los Angeles. A chapel serving the early pueblo dates back to the late 18th century, making it the first and, for about 90 years, the only Catholic church here.
“In a place like this, Ash Wednesday makes me feel extra special,” he said.
According to Gonzalez, the confluence of Lunar New Year and Ramadan with Lent is also extra meaningful.
“It is all about God’s plan. All roads always lead to him,” he said. “There’s a whole kind of unity happening right now to combat all the injustice out there.”
Lunar New Year is not just about good fortune
After my Ash Wednesday experience, I jumped in my car and headed to the San Gabriel Valley for a Lunar New Year dinner with my family. I was excited to break my fast with a big Chinese meal — though I had already definitely cheated and had a couple of beef tacos at Cielito Lindo near La Placita Church. I am not cut out for Lent or Ramadan. Or maybe I’m just bad at dieting.
The Lunar New Year, observed across East and Southeast Asia and among diasporic communities worldwide, also follows the moon — though through a lunisolar system that blends lunar cycles with the solar year.
To learn more, I decided to jump on a call with Janet Lee, a producer who lives in Highland Park and is a first-generation Korean American.
“For us, we were big on the lunar calendar growing up,” Lee said. “We’d make rice cake soup, bow to our parents and they’d give us money.”
As with many immigrant families, the tradition shifted over time. With her family scattered — her father in Korea, her sister in London and her mother having passed away when Lee was 16 — the holiday is no longer celebrated formally.
But in recent years, Lee said Lunar New Year has taken on a different kind of significance.
“In the last two or three years, I’ve gone a little deeper into it,” she said. “Not in a fortune-telling way, but as a way to reorient my mindset — to think about how I want to approach my life.”
This year, she said, that restoration feels heightened by how unstable the world feels.
“It feels like everything is on fire,” Lee said. “A lot of people are looking for a higher calling or a higher purpose.”
For Lee, the lunar calendar isn’t about predicting the future so much as slowing down inside it. She described intentionally aligning her days with natural cycles — waking with the daylight, drinking tea instead of coffee, wrapping work earlier and walking as the sun sets.
“So much of productivity and capitalism is antithetical to nature,” she said. “It’s just producing nonstop. This is about remembering how humans actually lived for centuries.”
In that sense, Lunar New Year shares something essential with Ramadan and Lent. It isn’t about denial or indulgence. It’s about pause.
Homes are cleaned to sweep away bad luck. Arguments are avoided. Haircuts are postponed. The logic is simple: clear space, don’t rush, start again with intention.
Which brings it back to the strange poetry of this moment: three traditions, rooted in different histories, all asking people to slow down at the same time.
“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Lee said.
Being invited into people’s worlds made one thing clear: This season isn’t about perfection — it’s about intention and hope, expressed in different ways across Los Angeles.
