Ash Wednesday illumines this truth in our lives and empowers us to make new choices, to reclaim values, to readjust loyalties, to realign our lives with our hearts.  This is invigorating, life-giving.  In the world people hire life coaches for this.  But God gives us Ash Wednesday.

 

At St. John's our Ash Wednesday services will be at 7:30am in the Chapel, at 12:15pm in the Church, and at 7:00pm in the Church with full choir.

 

Ash Wednesday also begins our season of Lent - traditionally a time of preparation for the celebration of Easter.  In the early Church, people wishing to be baptized would prepare for as much as three years.  In the final weeks before baptism they would prepare more intensively with fasting and prayer.  The Church community would join with them in support, and so also prepare for the renewal of baptism's grace at the celebration of the Resurrection at Easter.  We have adults and children who wish to be baptized at Easter.  Similarly, our Senior Youth group has been preparing for almost two years to renew their baptismal vows at Confirmation, and they will help lead us in Lenten preparation as they prepare more intensively for their Confirmation in Eastertide, on May 7th at the Cathedral.  As a Church community we join with them in this season of preparation, making our hearts ready to receive God's grace and life again at Easter. 

 

Preparing hearts can take many forms.  The old favorites are: fasting, almsgiving, prayer and study.  Finding a combination that makes sense for our life and circumstances is part of the freedom and responsibility given in the Episcopal Church.  Some may choose fasting from a food, others from an activity (abstaining from Facebook goes in and out of fashion), others from a habit or behavior they like to have more freedom from.  Almsgiving similarly can take so many forms.  Prayer and study can be done alone or in groups.  At St. John's there are book groups available at many different times and days and on many different subjects.  Please see if any of them speak to you.  There are many different ways to prepare; the important thing is not exactly what we choose so much as our intention and offering to God our Lenten practice. This is a symbol of our desire to become closer to him. 

 

Making offerings of our hearts isn't just for Lent, of course.  It's for every day all year through, and it is an essential part of our weekly Eucharist.  At the entrance of our church is a table of oblation - of offering.  Bread and wine are there as our collective offering to God.  They are symbols of our life - the food by which we subsist, and the fruit of our labor.  As symbols we offer them as a means of offering our whole lives to God.  This Lent, consider the offerings of your heart as you pass by the table, and silently add them to the bread and wine.  Also in Lent, we'll bring the offerings of food for those in need up to the altar with the bread and wine as part of our offering of whole hearts and compassion.  And a new collection plate will be on the table with paper slips to write down the prayer intentions you might particularly want to offer, and I will read them silently at the altar as part of our Eucharistic offering.  And of course the offering of our financial resources is also brought with the bread and wine, a meaningful part of our offering of our whole lives.

 

To enhance our sense of making an offering at God's altar together, we'll return to our eastward facing worship of Advent.  Priest and people will all face one direction together to make our offering humbly before God.  As we face East, toward the hope of Resurrection, our Promised Land, we will be people on the move.  Lent reminds us we are pilgrims heading home - returning not just to dust, but to God's heart and home.

 

Yours in Christ,