Lent

Lent has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I grew up in a church tradition which seemed to mark Lent and to remember it, but then didn't really know quite what to do with it. We did seem to have Lent Bible Study groups (some years) and people did talk about giving something up for Lent (although it did all seem rather casual and soemtimes half hearted). So what's it all about?

Lent has traditionally been a time of self denial. Lent was held at that time of the year when self denial wasn't too difficult because the stocks of food from the previous year's harvest were running low after the winter. Today the stocks of food only get low in the supermarkets when the petrol tankers stop running or after the locusts have doen their annual swarm just ebfore the Christmas holiday.

Now anyone who has seen me in recent years knows that my waist line would benefit from a little bit of self denial, but self denial is meant not just to be a negative thing but a positive thing: by not spending money on sweets or alcohol you free up money that might be given to the poor or other good causes; by getting up earlier in the morning you might be able to spend more time in prayer; by not watching a certain TV programme you might be able to spend the time reading the Bible or helping someone else out.

However I think Lent is also about preparing for Easter, getting our mind, heart and soul in a state in which we can understand best what happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
I'm going to try and follow a book of daily readings over Lent to help me do that.

Throughout Lent from now on we'll be pausing for ten minutes of reflection and prayer at 12.15 and 3.15 in the Chaplaincy downstairs room - please do join us if you can. The exception will be from February 18th to 22nd when we shall be taking part in a 24:7 prayer vigil. For more information about this and everything else we do in chaplaincy get in touch.