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Good morning. Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. This 40 day season leading to Holy Week and Easter is often characterised as a time to give something up that you enjoy. Last night, Shrove or Fat Tuesday, a ‘Mardi Gras’ tradition has it that all the butter, eggs, flour would be used up in food like pancakes - because today - the fast begins. Lent comes from an old English word meaning Spring, and so the season is sometimes called the sad springtime of the church. This year, in lockdown, while fear of suffering or dying has been haunting our pandemic daily life for months now, the prospect of Lent, and its deprivations may not seem possible, let alone appealing. But Lent has, at its root, a gentleness that Christians ascribe to God’s presence that we find sometimes hard to replicate ourselves. The season of Lent is gentle but persistent in its challenge because it addresses really deep and complex themes of guilt, doubt, shame and forgiveness.

In my work as a priest, I often meet people who are living with a sense of guilt. Quite often they’re not really sure what they’re feeling guilty about. And many who spend time on social media observing the curated, seemingly perfect lives of other people, combine that guilt with a nagging feeling of inadequacy too.

We human beings tend to either extreme; we say that everything we do and think is fine just because we think it; or we feel overwhelmed by the weight of all that is wrong with the world. Lent is a time to try to rebalance and re-centre ourselves knowing that Spring really is on its way.

God of glory and peace. Walk beside us in any wilderness that we know. Give us the eyes to see your face in every human face, including the glory of our own. Amen.