This Season — Lent

Ash Wednes­day
The out­ward and vis­i­ble sign of our en­trance into Lent is Ash Wednes­day, a ser­vice that in­cludes prayer, con­fes­sion, and the im­po­si­tion of ash­es on the fore­head. The use of ash­es as a sign of re­pen­tance has bib­li­cal roots and emerged among Chris­tians in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries.

• Sun­day, April 13, 10 am is our Palm Sun­day ser­vice with Holy Eu­charist, Fa­ther Jonathan Mayo presiding.

Lent
The lan­guage of Lent is raw and hon­est: We are mere dust, we make mis­takes, we need help. In a cul­ture where griev­ous ways can be post­ed pub­licly and cir­cu­lat­ed wide­ly in mere sec­onds, gar­ner­ing ad­vice and vil­i­fi­ca­tion by throngs of strangers, we are asked to take 40 days … to be­gin again, to re­con­nect with God, and to be re­newed and strength­ened in a re­la­tion­ship of pure love and per­fect forgiveness.

Lent calls us into a strange con­flu­ence of our con­tem­po­rary lives with an­cient cus­toms. As we try to keep up in a rapid­ly chang­ing world, our faith calls us back to the first cen­turies of Chris­tian­i­ty. In today’s sec­u­lar so­ci­ety, our faith calls us to stand be­fore God and re-con­nect with prac­tices that have nur­tured be­liev­ers for cen­tu­ry – the deep struc­tures that give a sure foun­da­tion for be­ing Chris­t­ian amid the chal­lenges of our mod­ern day.

Re­call­ing Je­sus’ 40 days in the wilder­ness, the great fasts of Moses and Eli­jah, and the fer­vent prayers of gen­er­a­tions of be­liev­ers, we are in­vit­ed to en­ter Lent. This is Holy Time. Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of those who have trav­eled this spir­i­tu­al road be­fore us, we are in­vit­ed to ex­am­ine our lives through prayer and con­tem­pla­tion, fast­ing, and oth­er prac­tices to help us rec­on­cile our lives with God and neigh­bor. In a world of quick fix­es, this is an ex­tend­ed time of prepa­ra­tion for the grace and restora­tion of Easter.

There will be a time, soon, for the more ac­tive work of mis­sion. But first, let us re­turn to­geth­er to the ob­ser­vance of a holy Lent.

To as­sist our ob­ser­vance of holy days, the com­mem­o­ra­tion of saints, and less­er feasts and fasts, For­ward Move­ment of­fers three litur­gi­cal cal­en­dars, as well as dai­ly med­i­ta­tions and a va­ri­ety of de­vo­tion­al re­sources.