My personal approach to Lent has gone through wild swings over the years. I was raised in an Anglo-Catholic parish where prayers, fasting, mid-week services & vigils were the norm for many parishioners. My earliest practices and disciplines were shaped in that community even during my college years. It was in those seasons of intended piety that I first thought I might become a monk. I should note that I was dating Barbara at the time and she thought it was not a very credible idea. It turned out that I did not have a monastic vocation.
Going to seminary in low-church Virginia re-shaped my Lenten practices. Fewer mid-week services but still marked by giving things up – smoking, desserts and the like. I don’t know that I gave a lot of attention to why I did those things. It was simply in the rhythm of my year. I might have supposed that in some minuscule way it was an imitation, or at least an echo, of Jesus’ forty day fast in the wilderness.
And then came the 1979 Prayer Book and the Liturgy for Ash Wednesday (BCP p. 264). The first time I read the Litany of Penitence, I felt as if someone had read my mind and exposed my worst personal traits to the world.
“We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,
We confess to you, Lord.
Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,
We confess to you, Lord.
Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, Lord.
Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,
We confess to you, Lord
Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,
We confess to your Lord.”
My heart pounded at those words and they re-charged my understanding of Lent as a time of interior reflection and self-understanding. For a long time my focus was much less on giving something up and more on sitting quietly listening for some holy presence.
Taking on a practice seems to fit well into my current listening for the heartbeat of God. I encourage you to read a book like Walking in Wonder by John O’Donohue, or go to www.episcopalchurch.org and look at The Way of Love as a resource. You will be surprised at how warmed your heart might be.
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Martin G. Townsend