On the Observance of Lent
People of the Good Shepherd,
Welcome to the Season of Lent. Unlike other seasons, Lent is not a season for celebrating – notice I didn’t say “Happy Lent.” Lent is a time, like in Advent, to turn, put off, and make preparations. It is a season of repentance (Rom 13:12). In this season we, as a community, walk with Jesus toward the cross (Good Friday), and ultimately his glorious resurrection (Easter).
The paradox of the gospel is dying to live (Phil. 1:21), giving away to get (Matt.13:44-46), and losing to find (Matt. 16:25). Lent invites each of us to give and give up, to gain a deeper connection with the living Christ and the Father, through the working of the Spirit. We make it our aim to share in his life and practice what he practiced as a means of increasing our capacity to love. In this season, we willingly engage in practices that we see in the life of Jesus – fasting, prayer, generous giving, etc. Observing Lent is not something we have to do, but we trust the age-old wisdom of the church, we look to the saints that have gone before us, and we engage in those practices that they have commended and handed down to us.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (February 14 this year) and goes until Holy Saturday, (March 30th). In the introduction to the Ash Wednesday service in the Book of Common Prayer we read, “Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent: a time of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in preparation for the great feast of the resurrection.” During the Ash Wednesday Service, you will be marked with ashes in the form of the cross, reminding us of our mortality, and our need for repentance, and reminding us that the whole of our Christian life is one of repentance and preparation for when Christ and his Kingdom are fully realized.
I would ask all of us: What can you set down or set aside for a season? Conversely, what might you take up as a part of participating in making preparations in this season of Lent?
Thomas Cranmer exhorts us, “examine your life and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, and in whatsoever ye shall perceive yourselves to have offended, wither by will, word, or deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness, and to confess yourselves to almighty God, with full amendment of life” (1662 BCP, 252).
Lastly, the Prayer Book reads, “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent: by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and alms-giving; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (BCP, 544).
I invite you all to the observance of Lent.
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Mike+
Artwork: The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311
Download our Lenten Devotional guide below.