Lenten Thoughts

I was not raised in a church tradition that observed Lent. Our small congregation of a fundamentalist sect of the Christian faith in a small town had banned all reference to what its founders considered ‘papist’, including any mention of saints, crucifixes, and church seasons except for Christmas and Easter. The reasoning behind such proscriptions rested on the idea that good and faithful followers should always be in a state of grace, and if they were, did not need a special part of the year set aside to restore them to it. Nice idea, but it didn’t work out too well, particularly in our congregation.

By the time my folks joined it, the church had entrenched itself into the strong clutches of a prominent family who ran things. Period. At any given time, several members of these aristocrats could be found on the church board of elders, and what they said was law. What this bred was an atmosphere of judgment and sometimes suspicion, often based on rumors and innuendos that floated freely every day in the local post office, the center of news for our town. A young minister came to serve the congregation, and when he had the temerity to point out that the church’s pervading attitude went directly against the most basic teachings of the Gospel, plans were drawn up to get rid of him, and in no time at all, he was gone.

Now that I see what Lent can be for people, I cannot help but think that a period of contemplative prayer and a renewal of Christian values would have aided that congregation way back then. Without it, we all adopted the prevailing sense of superiority, wanting as we did to fit in, often manufacturing our self-importance and holier-than-thou attitudes out of nothing. We never stopped to repent (meaning to re-think) anything much because we were sure that we were in the right, following as we did the examples and influence of the ruling family.

I do not mean to bring judgment down upon that congregation of so long ago, nor upon that ruling family. For one thing, they are all dead, so we can leave it to God to decide things; I merely report what was and how what they didn’t do in terms of taking forty days to look at things more clearly, shaped all of us in those days. They became habits and ways of non-thinking that have been hard to break, even now.

When, nearly thirty years ago, Lent became a part of my life, I had to learn what to do with it. I’m still learning. What happens changes from year to year as my life needs it to, and that is one of Lent’s great gifts. It is not, as some other traditions think, a period of doing nothing, of sitting around in sackcloth and ashes and moaning our state as fallen humans. It is instead a time of action, of finding ourselves on a closer walk with God.

One possibility and source of what to might do during Lent comes from the prayer of St. Francis, which is full of action verbs:

“Lord, make us instruments of your peace,” it starts. You can read it for yourself on page 813 of the Book of Common Prayer, but I want to go to its last part to make my point. “Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. " If we can consciously move ourselves toward accomplishing only those great tasks and get used to doing them in our daily lives, continuing them as they become habits and ways of thinking, then Lent has meant something to us, has strengthened us in our Christian life and faith, and has put us on the truer path with God.

Just above St. Francis’ prayer, you’ll find this one, a prayer of self-dedication:

"Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen."

Robert Heylmun
2/17/2014

What Lent means to me: A song

Every liturgical season is a reminder that many newcomers here at St. Paul’s come from other traditions,  and may not be familiar with the various seasons of the Episcopal church calendar.  This year, we're asking members of the community, from "old hands" to recent arrivals,  to answer the question,  “what does Lent mean to me?”  We'll be posting them here regularly as we move into, and through,  the Lenten season.


From Charles Hudgins: 

The spirit of Lent is perfectly presented to me in Psalm 51, the Psalm for Ash Wednesday. That beautiful entreaty for perfect sacrifice and a clean heart inspired me to write a paraphrase, metered and rhymed for singing to 'Herzlich tut mich verlangen [Passion Chorale]' by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), adapted and harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - the familiar setting for "O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded" and surely one of the most mournful tunes in Christendom. I have offered the hymntext for use at St. Paul's during Lent. Click for a closer view.

What Lent means to me: Grounding, Listening, Detaching

Every liturgical season is a reminder that many newcomers here at St. Paul’s come from other traditions,  and may not be familiar with the various seasons of the Episcopal church calendar.  This year, we're asking members of the community, from "old hands" to recent arrivals,  to answer the question,  “what does Lent mean to me?”  We'll be posting them here regularly as we move into, and through,  the Lenten season.


Today, Mark Lester shares his thoughts with us.

Ask a group of Roman Catholics, Lutherans or Anglicans about the meaning of Lent, and most would probably say something along the lines of “repentance, prayer, and fasting.” But beyond that core agreement, each of us interprets these holy practices in his own way. Some do this very traditionally, while others find meaning along a slightly different path.

 For me, Lent is when I take stock of my life. This is something I should be doing continuously, but Lent gives me the nudge I need to really think seriously about things. The example of Jesus’ desert temptation, when he sorts out what he’s called to do, and prayerfully finds the courage to say no to things that are temptingly sweet but don’t fulfill that calling, is a powerful image for me. My personal touchstones for Lent are “grounding, listening, and detaching.” This is what I mean by them and this is also what Lent means to me:

Grounding: Even at nearly sixty, I’m still pretty blind, most of the time, to my mortality. I carry on unreflectively with day-to-day life as if there were an endless succession of tomorrows. I know that death is in my future, but most of the time that chastening fact doesn’t have much effect on how I lead my life. But kneeling at the altar rail on Ash Wednesday to have ashes mixed with chrism smeared onto my forehead is a true reminder of mortality. It grounds me, makes me aware, if even for just a brief space, that I am finite, limited, and ever dependent on God. Dust. This rude reminder urges me to turn towards God, and to contemplate my life, both where I’ve been and where I’m headed.

Listening: It’s hard for me to listen to people. I want to interrupt, to complete their thoughts, to transform what they are saying into what I want to hear them say. It’s even harder for me to listen to God. Too often when I pray I say the words, but don’t listen to what God is saying to me while I voice the prayer. So, trying to get to a place of quiet listening is part of my Lenten practice. I don’t believe that God’s word is limited to sacred scripture; God is still speaking – often through music and art – and also through human acts of kindness and love. So during Lent, I try to slow down, and I try to stop completing God’s sentences, whether in word or music, and just prayerfully listen.

Detaching: “Giving up” a favorite food (or entertainment) for Lent is a revered tradition, but not one that works for me in the long haul. Resolving to deny myself something relatively harmless, even for the forty days of Lent, too easily becomes an ego-filled enterprise of victory vs. failure. Instead, I try to reconsider one or more of my habits during Lent. Not always changing them, but at least trying to see them for what they are. Most aspects of our lives are shaped by habitual patterns of behavior; some of them are good, and keep us functioning healthily, while others ultimately tear us down. The key for me is to “detach” from the routine practice of a habit, and then reflect on it. Is this good for me? Is it respectful of others? Is this how God would have me be? For me, Lent means that it is time to go off “auto-pilot,” and to consider prayerfully why I do what I do.

Finally, Lent also means that Easter is right around the corner – regardless of how well or how poorly I’ve lived through the discipline of Lent, Easter will come as the assurance of God’s love, without condition and without exception.

What Lent Means to Me: a new series

Every liturgical season is a reminder that many newcomers here at St. Paul’s come from other traditions,  and may not be familiar with the various seasons of the Episcopal church calendar.  This year, we're asking members of the community, from "old hands" to recent arrivals,  to answer the question,  “what does Lent mean to me?”  We'll be posting them here regularly as we move into, and through,  the Lenten season.

Our first reflection comes to us from Robert Heylmun.

The denomination of the church in which I was raised did not believe in Lent, nor in any of the other seasons of the church year, nor even in the saints as they are usually celebrated in more traditional churches. But the idea of Lent was not new to me, even as a child. My Roman Catholic grandmother observed Lent along with meatless Fridays, well after Vatican II, a movement about which she had strong reservations and suspicions. She missed the Latin Mass, and she persisted in the old ways, including Lent.

We Protestants didn’t pay much attention beyond the fact that her usually generous menus around her kitchen table on the farm took on a sparse aspect, often devoid of meat. “Charlotte’s into Lent,” my mother would say, and we would eat at home more often during this season that seemed to extend a lot longer than it really did.

When I became an Episcopalian, I was, as many are, enflamed with my new faith, and I wanted to participate as fully as possible in every facet of its traditions. Along came Lent, and, like a good Episcopalian, I read up on it. “A period of forty weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter as a period of penitence and fasting.” Fasting? Really? On top of that harsh news came the admonishment that, as a memento of my devotion to Lent, I ought to give up something that I would genuinely miss. Such a sacrifice would supplant going around in sackcloth and ashes, and one parishioner announced that she would give up chocolate.  Imagine that. Sackcloth seemed pretty attractive after all.

What had I got myself into? Suddenly the happy club of the Episcopal Church that had accepted me as a member the previous fall was about to impose draconian measures on me for a month and a half. What could I give up? And then why should I give anything up? I couldn’t find a single word about Lent in the scriptures, and the tradition leg of the three-legged stool that defines the Faith was the shakiest of them all. Traditions change. After all, didn’t we ordain women now, and we didn’t used to.

Lots of equivocation and trying to excuse myself from Lent didn’t get me very far. Lent was still there, looming ahead, and I hadn’t done anything about it. As often happens with us, I began to think about why the Church thought that Lent was such a hot idea.

It wasn’t until Ash Wednesday itself that I came to a brighter view of Lent. Ash Wednesday reminds us all of our mortal condition, that we are destined to return to dust. Far from feeling sad by that grim reminder, I somehow felt elevated, free, and as if I had been handed a clean slate, and the idea of penitence took on new meanings. Penitence implies having sorrow for one’s sins, and that in and of itself is a cleansing act, but merely being sorry for them isn’t enough. Correcting what can be corrected, righting what wrongs might have been done, apologizing for hurtful words to someone, moving in ways that characterize a sense that the Holy Spirit stirs within and prompts right actions from being sorry for wrong ones, that’s what penitence meant for me as soon as the ashes were imposed on my forehead.

Lent, then, became a time for doing purposefully good things, and they would constitute my Lenten observance. How easy it was to go to Macdonald’s and buy gift cards to give out to people on the street who ask for help, just as an example. Increase a donation to the San Diego Food Bank, give up a Saturday or two at a charity are other acts that require something of myself. Random gifts, expecting no return (that’s what gift means in the first place), joyfully given in the spirit of Christ who gave everything for us, redeeming us from our willful and errant ways.

That’s what I have done in every Lent since 1984 when I puzzled where I might find sackcloth these days.  Along with the additional prayers and services that accompany Lent, I have found the peace that I think the season was intended to bring, merely by being intentional in giving something of myself to the greater good.

 Thank you Robert!  


If YOU want to share your ideas about Lent, spiritual practices, reminiscences, or reflections, don't be shy!  We want to hear from the whole community, from our cradle Episcopalians to the most recent arrival experiencing Lent  for the first time.  What are you thinking?   Just send an email to us at StPaulBlog@gmail.com .