February 2012
St. Mark’s News Volume 15/Issue 2
From the Rector 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. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer. (BCP p. 265) On Ash Wednesday, February 22, we will once again hear this invitation that is extended to each of us for the observance of a holy Lent. This invitation will be the theme of our Wednesday evenings in Lent. When we gather in the chapel after our soup supper we will have an opportunity to reflect on some of these components that make up a “holy Lent.” We will hear In This Issue scriptural and devotional readings on Repentance/Penitence, on Fasting, on Prayer, on Almsgiving, and on From the Rector ........................ 1 Forgiveness/Absolution. The question remains, nevertheless, Vestry Highlights ....................... 2 how each of us might mark this season in a way that is holy Lenten Service Schedule .......... 3 and in a way that draws us into a closer relationship with God. Parish Life ................................. 4 Lent is traditionally a time for giving some thing(s) up. The Christian Formation ................... 7 temptation is to make Lent an opportunity for selfCaffeine Ministry ....................... 8 improvement, rather than an opportunity for reflection and Celebrations .............................. 8 repentance. Giving something up really only matters if it has Calendar ................................... 10 some hold on our lives. Lauren Winner is the author of the ROTA ........................................ 11 books Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath. Winner grew up with a Reform Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother. As a student at Columbia University in New York she converted to Orthodox Judaism. And then a few years later she converted to Christianity and she became an Episcopalian. She writes, “The very first thing I liked about Christianity, long before it ever occurred to me to go to church or say the creed or call myself a Christian, was the Incarnation, the idea that God lowered himself and became a man so that we could relate to Him better.” But it is her chapter on the observance of Lent that might prompt each of us to consider what we might give up for Lent. The church that Ms. Winner found to attend was All Angels (the same church Philip and I were a part of when we were first married) on the upper west side of NYC. On the day after Ash Wednesday she and her rector were having breakfast together when he asked her what discipline she had adopted for Lent. She told him that she was going to fast every Friday, because it seemed so much more significant than giving up chocolate or caffeine. The night before, in his Ash Wednesday sermon, the priest had encouraged the congregation to consider giving up something that really mattered: “something you really
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