Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The season of Lent is upon us once again, and while much has changed for many of us individually and as a faith community over this past year, we can look to Lent as a forty day season for regrounding ourselves spiritually by immersing ourselves in the ancient practices of our faith even in these days of COVID-19.
The forty day length of Lent draws its inspiration from the multiple forty day experiences found in scripture: Moses stayed on the mountain of God forty days (Exodus 24:18 and 34:28), the spies were in the land for forty days (Numbers 13:25), Elijah traveled forty days before he reached the cave where he had his vision (1 Kings 19:8), Nineveh was given forty days to repent (Jonah 3:4), and most importantly, Jesus spent forty days in wilderness praying and fasting before beginning the ministry that led to his death and resurrection (Matthew 4:2). From ancient times, Christians have taken on prayer and fasting in imitation of Christ as spiritual disciplines leading up to the celebration of Good Friday and the Feast of the Resurrection.
During this season of prayer, it is proper that we should do self-examination and take the steps necessary to mend our relationships with God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. In the ancient church, Lent was a time when converts to the faith were prepared for baptism and those who fell into notorious sin were restored to the faith community by confession, repentance, and reconciliation. Lent may be for us a similar time for prayer and reflection on our relationship with God and the promises we made in our baptismal covenant. It may be a time for confession and repentance. For some, it may be a time for seeking the rite of reconciliation.
In the service for Ash Wednesday, we hear Jesus speak about proper prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. His words are both a witness to the faith practices of his day and a prescription for all the faithful in all ages. During the forty days of Lent, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are practiced that we might be drawn back to and closer to God, and that we would be prepared as Jesus prepared for the events of Good Friday and the Resurrection.
Questions you might ask at the beginning of Lent to help identify where your spiritual life might benefit from taking on a forty day discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are: How am I living the Gospel in my home, in my work, in my church, in my town?
In what ways have I grown stagnant, cold-hearted, closed off, or failed to seek God?
In what areas of my life have I failed to acknowledge growth or signs of renewal, and equally failed to express gratitude for these blessings?
While we will not be able to gather this year for the annual pancake supper, I do invite you to join with your fellow good shepherds on Zoom at 6:00PM on Tuesday, February 16, to share your household pancake supper time with your friends. Watch the email highlights for the Zoom meeting ID and passcode. We will begin the season of Lent with an Ash Wednesday service at 11:00AM streaming on the parish FaceBook page. Drive by imposition of ashes will follow at noon in the parking lot. While the imposition of ashes is a tradition of the church, it is not required and in fact is an optional feature of the Ash Wednesday liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer. Please see a separate piece in this newsletter for an alternative to the imposition of ashes.
I invite you in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial. May each of us find our spiritual lives resurrected and enriched by the experience and may we soon find ourselves safely re-gathered in that holy sanctuary where we have celebrated so many time the resurrection of our Lord.
Fr. Bill+