ASH WEDNESDAY AND LENT 2024
Ash Wednesday was on 14th February this year. Good Friday will be on 29th March and Easter Sunday on 31st.
We held a Eucharist with Imposition of Ashes on Wednesday 14th February.
Some resources for your own prayer and reflection at home during the rest of Lent will be available shortly.
ASH WEDNESDAY
The Crosses from Palm Sunday last year are collected up and burned to make the ash that we use on Ash Wednesday. This marks the beginning of Lent, the forty days before Easter (the Sundays are not counted). Lent is a season of self-examination, penitence, self-denial, study, almsgiving and preparation for Easter. Ashes are an ancient sign of penitence. From Medieval times people have been marked with the sign of the cross at the beginning of Lent.
The ash will be ground up and then a prayer of blessing is said over it. Before COVID, ashes were then used to mark crosses on people’s foreheads during a church service including a Eucharist. This year there will be prayer cards to use at home instead.
LENT
Many people choose to give something up or take something on in Lent. The giving up may be of a food treat, the taking on may be a commitment to prayer or reading the Bible and a Lent book daily. There are many options, but the key theme for Lent is of prayer and fasting. Prayer deepens our relationship with God. Fasting too draws us closer to God and helps us with our prayers. Fasting may be total abstinence from food for a period of time, and those with medical conditions are advised to consider carefully which options may be safe for them.
This Lent, our Wednesday Prayer Fellowship will be meeting every week to participate in the Diocese of London’s Listening Groups for Lent. There will be a video conference session at the beginning of the series, which we shall review on the following Wednesday morning. The next three weeks’ meetings will include discussions based on the PDF materials we download. Finally, the fifth week will include a review of the concluding video. We hope this will make an uplifting and useful change from our usual fare of a Lent book each year.
If you would like to participate, we meet in church on Wednesdays from 10:00am to around 11:15, and the session is also live on Zoom. You are also welcome to follow along at home by reading the book in your own time.
MOTHERING SUNDAY - the FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT
… has its own page of information here.
