Lent 2023 at Nativity

What Do You Need from Lent?

You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast…
BCP, 379, Preface for Lent
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We don’t usually think of Lent as a time of joyful preparation. A time of cleansing, sure. But joy? This Lent, rather than asking you what you are going to give up or take on, what soul-cleansing  or penitence are you offering, I invite you to consider the following question:

What do you need to prepare with joy?

Perhaps our penitence is the naming of what we need, but were afraid to ask for? Perhaps our sins come from our unmet and unspoken needs? What better way to turn away from our sins than to ask God to meet that need. But, before we ask God, we have to acknowledge what our needs might be.

It is not fun to be needy. It is much more powerful to be the one who gives, not the one who needs. Knowing your needs is humbling. It is being vulnerable. There is always the risk that our request might not be answered. 

And yet, we are God’s faithful people not because we are faithful to God, but because God is always and forever faithful to us. Below are some ways you may enter into this season of Lent and name what you need:

— The Rev. Stephanie Allen

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