Saint Michael & All Angels

Lenten Meditations

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Click on the appropriate square for that day's reading.

The 40 days of Lent do not include the Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Sunday is always a day celebrating the Resurrection. However, for consistency in your daily meditations, we have included meditations for each Sunday during Lent.

Dear People of Saint Michael and All Angels and Friends,

Lent, modeled after Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, is a time in which we are invited to make a more direct approach to God. By confession, study, worship, service and giving, we make our approach more resolute, honest and transformative.

The black smudge cross on Ash Wednesday begins the journey. Self-examination, reflection and prayer are intended to be the tools along the way toward Calvary and beyond to resurrection. I think it is safe to say that Christians need never fear the commercialization of Lent. Hallmark will never issue greeting cards with the word "REPENTANCE" emblazoned across the top. Shopkeepers will not dress their windows in sackcloth and ashes. There is no apparent danger that sacrifice will ever catch on with the culture at large, especially since it doesn't even sell very well in the church.

In my last year of seminary, at the start of a final exam on the Gospels with famous Professor Reginald Fuller, one young man in my class set out on his desk a devotional card. It simply read, "Travel Light, Prepare Well, Think Deeply, Love Broadly, and Rely on Grace." Dr. Fuller read it, liked it, and, with permission of the student, set it on the front lectern for all to see.

I invite you to see these sacred notes in the same way -- to publicly and privately alter our regular pattern, enabling us to live the Christian life and not merely observe it.

Have a sacred journey to Easter.

Robert S. Dannals

Rector