Dear friends
How is your journey through Lent 2024 going? In my letter last month, inspired by the first book of Genesis, I wanted to remind you that God is always calling us into the next step of faith and trust, of hope and love. So, as we approach the half way mark this Lent, I want to encourage you to keep going!
At this time of year, the Church calendar commemorates the priest and poet George Herbert (1593 -1633). His relatively short life continues to have a powerful influence. I quoted from George Herbert last month and do so happily again, he is one of my favourite poets. Herbert gives us a wonderful paradox in his poem, Lent, in which he claims that the season, is both for fasting, so that we can starve sin, and also feasting.
Perhaps this poem is what inspired a former Bishop of Toronto, Terry Finlay, to write this Lenten reflection of opposites:
Fast from excess and feast on simplicity,
Fast from negatives and feast on alternatives,
Fast from discontent and feast on gratitude,
Fast from gossip and feast on silence,
Fast from self-concern and feast on compassion,
Fast from anxiety and feast on faith.
I find this so helpful and hopeful because it assumes that we have a choice. We are not simply helpless in the face of circumstances, or forced to be shaped by them. If you run through the reflection, is it in tune with your natural inclinations? Would you prefer to swap the words fast and feast? (So, fast from simplicity and feast on excess?) Which will create happiness for you in the long-term? How we behave and the habits we adopt can become blessings or curses for us and for those around us.
I do hope and pray that this challenge to choose what you are going to feast on, and what to fast from, will be helpful during the second half of Lent.
Next weekend we celebrate Mothering Sunday, sometimes also known as Refreshment Sunday. I’m told that we will be distributing 250 bunches of daffodils, so a big ‘thank you’ in advance to our wonderful Flower Team. Mothering Sunday music will be led by the Junior Choir, a tremendous sign (and feast) of new life and hope among us, as the inspiration of the choral tradition is shared with children more widely. I do hope that you will come in person or online to welcome the Junior Choir and their families.
The Holy Week booklet with services and events from Palm Sunday to Easter Day will be online next week (with booklets available from Mothering Sunday) so do please take a look and decide to participate more than you have done in the past. Make the choice to be shaped by Holy Week and by staying close to Christ in the week of his Passion and Resurrection. We are looking forward to welcoming our Good Friday preacher, Revd Dr Gillian Straine, whose own experience of healing has deeply informed her faith and understanding.
I do pray that you will allow God to draw closer to you this year during Lent and Holy Week, to experience the feast of love, joy and peace that Easter offers.
I’ll close with a Lenten prayer from our own C of E Common Worship
Holy God
our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
With blessings and best wishes,
The Very Revd Catherine Ogle
Dean of Winchester