Lent, 2024

From ‘Time Flies’
by Christina Rossetti (1885)

Is any grieved or tired? Yea, by God’s Will:
Surely God’s Will alone is good and best:
O weary man, in weariness take rest,
O hungry man, by hunger feast thy fill.
Discern thy good beneath a mask of ill,
Or build of loneliness thy secret nest:
At noon take heart, being mindful of the west,
At night wake hope, for dawn advances still.
At night wake hope. Poor soul, in such sore need
Of wakening and of girding up anew,
Hast thou that hope which fainting doth pursue?
No saint but hath pursued and hath been faint;
Bid love wake hope, for both thy steps shall speed,
Still faint yet still pursuing, O thou saint.

From the invitation to the season, Common Worship, 2000:

Brothers and sisters in Christ: since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord’s passion and resurrection and prepared for this by a season of penitence and fasting.

By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and in devotion to our Lord.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.

How are we to do this, in such difficult and sorrowful times? If you live in Chingford, then here are two suggestions for you:

Living Differently

A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven

7.30 pm Thursdays at the Rectory

Seeing and Believing

Lenten Themes In The Movies

4.00 pm Saturdays at the Rectory

Full details of times, and other Lent services, are on the Lent Leaflet: