Weekly Reflection - 2/6/2024

St. Mary's Reflection: The Rev. Kira Austin-Young

Preparing Our Hearts for Lent

Our official Lenten preparations begin this Sunday with our Shrove Sunday pancake breakfast at 10 a.m. as we feast before our Lenten fast begins, and I hope you’ll join us for this fun and joyful meal. The liturgical season of Lent begins this year on February 14th, which is also Valentine’s Day. After all, what better celebration of love than reminding ourselves of our frailty and mortality? As the invitation to a holy Lent in the prayer book states, Lent is a season of penitence and fasting and we are encouraged to observe “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” The purpose of this 40-day season (not including Sundays which are always feasts of the resurrection!) is to prepare ourselves for the glorious 50-day feast of Easter.

In pursuing an Episcopal subReddit, I was struck by a post where someone declared that they had “done Lent wrong last year” and they “wanted to do it right this year.” Immediately, sirens went off in my head. There is no “wrong” or “right” way to do Lent! Of course, observing Lent might, paradoxically, be easier if your clergy declared that everyone had to fast from meat on Fridays or read their Bibles daily. The difficult part of Lent is that self-examination and repentance part - what do you need from Lent this year? It might be giving something up. It might be taking something on. Fasting does not need to be food-related either. I have fasted from unnecessary purchases in Lents past and used the funds I would have spent towards charity.

Inevitably, the Lent that I plan out and think that I’m going to have never materializes, and it took me many years to recognize that this is also the practice of Lent - of letting go and realizing that I am not ultimately in control. The best Lenten practice is the one that brings you closer to God and neighbor and does no harm. Whether we have an easy or a difficult Lent, whether life disrupts our best-laid plans for spiritual growth, whether we’re ready or not, Easter comes, and God triumphs over death.

The Rev. Kira Austin-Young