Lenten Resources
NEW! Video Lenten sermons from the Episcopal monks of SSJE
NEW! Daily Word and practice from the Episcopal monks of SSJE
NEW! Daily Word and practice from the Episcopal monks of SSJE
Shrove Tuesday explanation and poem prayer
Ash Wednesday at Home This link will help you do your own prayer and marking yourself with ashes. (Hint: light a match, and use the ashes from the burnt-out match.) We will host an Ash Wednesday service at 12;00pm and 7:00pm on March 2. If you are unable to attend, we will stream our 7:00pm service on our Facebook page here.
NEW! "Floriography" A creative and spiritually meaningful resource! Each day in Lent, look at the artwork, Scripture, or prayer for that day.
This Year's Lenten Devotional Booklet "Letting Go with all your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind," is available at the back of the nave, or in the front porch "Drop Box," or as a free PDF document online here. (Click on "Add to Cart;" the cost is $0.00)
A Different Kind of Devotional for Families using the various "holidays" of the secular calendar (e.g., "National Dentist's Day"). It's both fun and meaningful!
Making Pretzels A traditional Lenten activity you can do with your family.
NEW! A brief video of Episcopalian and scholar Diana Butler Bass talking about her personal experiences with Lent and "dying to oneself" (letting go)
Lent Madness A fun way to learn about some of the Church's saints! Patterned after College Basketball's "March Madness," this fun Lenten activity helps you learn about the "saints" of the Church. Created by two faithful, funny, geeky Episcopal priests, each day 2 names of saints and their short biographies will arrive in your email inbox. Read the bios, and then vote as to which of the two you think more "saintly." At the end of Holy Week, the votes will be tallied, the Winner will be announced, and the Golden Halo awarded. Click here to sign up. (Type in your email in the right hand column and click on "subscribe.")
Confession in the Episcopal Church Confession can be deeply healing.
Creating a Lenten Prayer Space in the Home A help to Lenten prayer.
Friday Nights in Lent
Diocesan Lenten Resource Page Our Diocese has a list of resources.
Examine Your Life with the Examen St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order (of which Pope Francis is a member), developed a simple, daily reflection called the Examen. If you'd like to try this, Lent is the perfect time! See information about the Examen here.
Lenten Resources from "Building Faith," a ministry of Virginia Theological Seminary (one of our Episcopal seminaries)
Brief videos describing special days and aspects of Lent
How am I to enter into Lent?
How to "change the direction in which I am looking for happiness."?
What shall I give up and of what shall I partake as food
for the journey to resurrected life?
Possible small acts of renunciation
-fasting from news
-fasting from the television
-fasting from food, sweets, alcohol
-fasting from negative commentary of some sort
-countless ways of fasting; each of us has our own variety
Then, we are invited to uncritically observe the impacts on self:
-the discomfort
-the freed-up time
-the freed-up money
-What is being revealed? Is a kind of purification taking place, a cleansing of self-will, of habitual, mechanical, self-calming behaviors? Is there a wakefulness arising?
Possible acts created by these spaces
-reading Scripture
-listening to sacred music
-walks in nature
-lengthening our prayer times
-reading a special book, maybe one we're not likely to read
-creations of beauty
-or, maybe it's simply redefining the contours of our daily existence and infusing them with a renewed intentionality: "I will do this yard work, this ironing, this chauffeuring, this attendance at a meeting and re-orient it with an attentiveness and consciousness born of spaciousness, rather than hurriedness."
Excerpt from The Word of the Week of March 3, 2019