Vicar's View

How is Your Lent going? 

By the time you read this we will be in the second or third week of Lent. So how is it going? I suggest that you select your answer from the following: 

§ Lent? What’s that? 

§ I hadn’t realised it had started 

§ Oh. Is that why there are no flowers in church? 

§ Well, I’ve given up chocolates 

§ I’m trying hard to make it feel different 

§ I think I need a bit of help 

Lent is a season of the church year which is set aside as a time for reflection, for sacrifice, for giving and for growing in our faith. Different Christian churches handle it differently. Some lay down rules about fasting, worship is more austere, the church building is devoid of certain decorative features, Lent groups might be organised and there is an emphasis on reflection and learning. But really it comes down to individual church members to decide how they can in some way celebrate Lent and grow in their faith through those seven weeks. 

So as Lent is already under way, perhaps we need to stop and ask ourselves what we are already doing to celebrate it. Have we given anything up? Have we started to do something extra? If not, why not.? 

I recommend that if you are doing nothing, then pick on just one thing that will make the remainder of Lent different. Make it either giving something up or doing something extra. I usually choose the latter. Giving up chocolates might be meaningful to some people but not for me. I usually have a box around the house given to me at Christmas and may have eaten one or two from it by February. But to say I will give them up for Lent would be nonsense. I will perhaps put the box out of sight and then am surprised when I discover it again in a cupboard in September. No, if we are going to give up something for Lent it must be something which really is a sacrifice.

Giving is another way of celebrating Lent. Supporting a charity should be more than simply writing a cheque or whatever you do in these strange electronic days. Giving should be sacrificial; it should be to an organisation that you really have an interest in and be backed up by actions, can we give some time as well to support it. 

But at the heart of Lent is growing in our faith. Sadly Lent Groups seem to be a thing of the past in our church, although we do have a couple of on-going study groups and various specific courses going on during the year. But get your Bible out and study one of its books, a gospel or a couple of epistles. Lay your hand on a commentary or plug into the internet to help you understand what you are reading, or pair up with someone else to learn together or from each other. 

And pray. You might already pray every day - great. But how about adding a new focus to it, spending more time in prayer and reflection. If you don’t pray every day, challenge yourself to do so for the remaining weeks of Lent. It may set you on course for continuing after Lent has finished. Prayer takes time, it needs periods of silence, periods of listening. One needs to submerse oneself in it. It isn’t simply presenting God with a shopping list of things we want, it is a time to feel God’s closeness and listen to His answers to the things that concern us. And there is no shortage of things happening in the world today to share with God and to ask for His help in solving. 

We cannot take on too much in Lent on top of our normal commitments. But let us each try to take on one act of personal sacrifice or giving and spend extra time in study or prayer. The mark of success in achieving these will be if we automatically carry on after Lent has finished and they become part of our everyday lives. 

Geoff