We hope this finds you safe and warm in the midst of this March blizzard. With travel not advised through our whole area, even though the snow will end and winds relent a bit by evening, it seems wise to allow all of us to stay hunkered down for this day. So we’ll be observing “Ash Sunday” this weekend, with the imposition of ashes that we would have done tonight. ***Daylight Savings Time begins Sunday! Spring ahead!***
Today still marks, though, even in our separateness, the start of this season of Lent. Since we won’t be together to share the traditional Invitation to a Holy Lent, I’m sending them here to spur your thought and prayer as we enter this season:
Dear siblings in Christ:
the early Christians observed with great devotion
the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection,
and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration
there should be a forty-day season of spiritual preparation.
During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.
It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins
and had separated themselves from the community of faith
were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness,
and restored to participation in the life of the Church.
In this way the whole congregation was reminded
of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ
and the need we all have to renew our faith.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,
to observe a holy Lent:
by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.
To make a right beginning of our turning toward God,
and as a mark of our morta nature,
let us now kneel (or bow) before our Creator and Redeemer.
a brief silence is kept
Amen.
Today’s devotional is from our lenten worship series, “Everything [in] Between: Meeting God in the Midst of Extremes.” If you’d like to sign up for a daily devotional to be emailed to you, visit: https://cwames.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2772903
