Preparing for Lent

We are officially one week away from Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent, a season of penitential practices and fasting. This is the 40 days we mark as Christians to take the time and space to honor Christ’s own penitential journey in the desert, where he fasted for 40 days and nights. The early Christians used the season of Lent as a time of preparation for those who were to be baptized at the Easter Vigil, or for those who were seeking to rejoin the church. This time was set aside for creating intentional discipleship through fasting, learning, and worship. As we seek to renew our own Baptismal vows (BCP 292) centered around our call to be disciples of Christ in the world, think about what practice or fast will most serve you in this quest.

Every year many of us come to Ash Wednesday wondering what we will give up or take on as our Lenten discipline. As you discern how you will enter into this season of penitence and fasting I encourage you to consider taking something on or giving something up that feeds your soul and draws you closer to the Divine presence in your life. I have collected a few online resources that can be used to guide you in your Lenten journey. Check them out, see how these might assist you or your family as you seek to use this season of penitence and fasting to ignite the light of Christ in your life.


5 Marks of Love - Society of Saint John the Evangel
“This six-week series (beginning Sunday, February 26) provides the opportunity to observe and to reflect on the ways in which the Divine Life expresses itself in and through us; individually and in our faith communities, as well as in the world around us.  Each week we will explore the Anglican Marks of Mission (Tell, Teach, Tend, Transform and Treasure) through videos, questions and exercises so we can speak more clearly and act truthfully, motivated always by hearts marked by God’s love.
The Brothers of SSJE will draw on their own monastic spirituality to help us balance action with contemplation, so that our words and deeds proceed from the deepest places of our hearts, where God dwells.  The resource encourages us to reflect on how we should live, not what we should do.”

Join here: http://ssje.org/ssje/5marksoflove/


A Season of Prayer: 40 Days in the Desert - Forward Movement
“Exile, hospitality, and migration are recurrent themes in the Bible and throughout the history of the church. Starting on Ash Wednesday, and continuing through Lent, Forward Movement invites you to a season of prayer. Each day we will offer you a prayer from The Book of Common Prayer or a passage from the Bible. As we grapple with these issues as Christians, we invite you to make these prayers and scriptural passages part of your Lenten devotions. May they help guide your Lenten journey and help us find in Christ our Promised Land.”

Join by following Forward Movement on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fwdmvt/


Lent Madness - The Rev. Tim Schenck & The Rev. Canon Scott Gunn

“A fun and engaging way for people to learn about the men and women comprising the Church’s Calendar of Saints. The format is straightforward: 32 saints are placed into a tournament-like single elimination bracket… The first round consists of basic biographical information about each of the 32 saints. Things get a bit more interesting in the subsequent rounds as we offer quotes and quirks, explore legends, and even move into the area of saintly kitsch.” This is a great Lenten practice that involves fun, competition, and learning about the mystics who helped found many of our contemplative traditions.

Join by following Lent Madness on Facebook or on their website: https://www.facebook.com/lentmadness/
http://www.lentmadness.org/

Pausing to Remember in Whose Image I am Created

" Then God walked around, and God looked around
   On all the he had made.
   He looked at His sun, and he looked at his moon.
   And he looked at his little stars; 
   He looked on his world, with all of its living things, 
   And God said: I'm lonely still.

   Then God sat down- 
   On the side of the hill where he could think;
   By a deep, wide river he sat down;
   With his head in his hands, God thought and thought, 
   Till he thought: I'll make me a man!

   Up from the bed of  the river
   God scooped up the clay; 
   Any be the bank of the river
   He kneeled him down;
   And there the great God Almighty
   Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, 
   Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, 
   Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
   This Great God, 
   Like a mammy bending over her baby, 
   Kneeled down in the dust
   Toiling over a lump of clay
   Till he shaped it in his own image;

   The into it he blew the breath of life, 
   And man became a living soul.
   Amen. Amen."
         
                         - James Weldon Johnson from God's Trombones Seven Negro Sermons in Verse