As this magazine is published we stand on the threshold of the holy season of Lent. Lent this year begins on Wednesday February 17th and will be marked in the parish by Masses at 10am in S. Dunstan’s which will be a Low Mass, and at 7.30pm in Holy Angels which will be a Solemn Mass. There will be the Imposition of Ashes at both churches. The ashes are provided by burning the Palm Crosses which were blessed and distributed at the liturgy on Palm Sunday last year.

So often Lent is seen as something which is negative, a season where we don’t do this or we give up that. True, Lent is a time of fasting, penitence and self-denial, but it is so precisely because it is a positive season in which we are called to grow in discipleship.

The whole point of self-denial is that it removes us from the centre of our own little universes that we have created and puts God there instead where he needs to be and where he has to be. That is why we give up things that we like.

This Lent we will be having Lent boxes from the Additional Curates Society. For the work that they do please visit their website www.additionalcurates.co.uk. A Lent box is the means by which we put the fruits of our abstinence towards doing work that is positive. For example, we may like a bottle of red wine each weekend with a meal. If we decide to give that up for Lent, then each weekend the price of a bottle of wine goes in the box because we have saved that money. So if we are in the habit of a £5 bottle each weekend, then by the end of Lent we will raise £30 in our Lent box. Similarly whatever we save by not eating chocolate goes straight into the box. In addition to this, we may decide to put any small change from our pockets in as well.

Liturgically we will be having the devotions of the Stations of the Cross on Friday evenings as usual. I have spoken with Fr Anthony at Our Lady and S. Christopher and it looks as if we may be having joint devotions and will alternate between the two churches. Details will be published nearer to Ash Wednesday.

Another excellent Lenten discipline is to get into the habit of attending at least one midweek Mass. It would be marvellous to see an increase at the daily Mass and so Lent would be a wonderful time to start this practice. Someone said to me the other day that they just could not understand why more people did not come to Mass on Saturday mornings in S. Dunstan’s as the atmosphere is one of great peace.

In Holy Angels we have three copies of the Divine Office; it would be splendid for me to be joined by others when I say Morning or Evening Prayer.

So as Lent approaches, let us spend some time and sit down and work out exactly what we are going to do for Lent this year.

I close with the words of the Preface of the First Sunday of Lent:

“His fast of forty days makes this a holy season of self-denial. By rejecting the devil’s temptations he has taught us to rid ourselves of the hidden corruption of evil, and so to share his paschal meal in purity of heart, until we come to its fulfilment in the promised land of heaven”.

I wish all of you a very holy Lent.

Yours in Christ

Father Michael