Episcopal Diocese Of Pittsburgh Offering Ash Wednesday “Ashes To Go”

From Pittsburgh (with video)-

Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season and this year, church leaders will be offering parishioners to mark the start of Lent wherever they are.

Rather than have to attend a traditional church service, members of the church will be going to public places, public transit stops, airports, and a military base to offer ashes to those that are unable or prefer not to attend church.

Church leaders will be at 14 different areas throughout Pittsburgh between 7:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

More here-

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/02/26/ashes-to-go-ash-wendesday-2020/

When Cathedrals get angry – they flip

From English Cathedrals-

It’s that time of year and many of our cathedrals are gearing up to get flipping for Shrove Tuesday and preparing to move into the Lenten season.

On Tuesday York Minster will raise the Lent and Easter Cross ready for Ash Wednesday. This wooden cross – six metres tall by three metres wide is made from wooden scaffolding boards in the Minster workshop – will be suspended from the Central Tower throughout the Lenten season.

In Winchester, 20 teams made up of clergy, choristers, councillors, charities, and mayors in full regalia will be tossing pancakes and raising money for charity at the same time thanks to Winchester Rotary at the inaugural Winchester Pancake race.

More here-

https://www.englishcathedrals.co.uk/latest-news/cathedral-pancake-day/?fbclid=IwAR0GEQiFTSEDSeSjdJJoeKyNhKg90q_tNYHBTRiQ00g9xEX8dttn8Q7K0Zc

Anglican Bishop: Maloney Mission must help community

From Trinidad-

A church is not a space for the morally sound to relax and listen to the gospel. A church is for those who are spiritually wounded to seek refuge, find peace and learn how to live better lives.

These were the sentiments Reverend Bishop Claude Berkley shared at the naming and blessing of the Church of the Transfiguration Maloney Mission. 

The church on Flamingo Boulevard, Maloney Gardens, was opened on Carnival Saturday – the weekend before Lent – as that time signifies a period of transfiguration for individuals in the Anglican Faith.

"Given the issues of our nation, murder, crime, violence, domestic violence, corrupt tendencies and practice, marginalised persons of little or no means, misdirected young people, poor parenting in some instances, challenged family life and living, persons who are seeking a new way of life and looking for options, new diseases upon us, and the list is long. 

More here-

https://newsday.co.tt/2020/02/25/anglican-bishop-maloney-mission-must-help-community/

Bishop Kee Sloan: Lent means more than giving up brussel sprouts

From Alabama-

Bishop Kee Sloan, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, kicked off Lent with an Ash Wednesday sermon at Cathedral Church of the Advent that recalled his childhood vow to give up brussel sprouts.

“When I was a kid, for several years in a row, I gave up brussel sprouts for Lent,” Sloan said. “And for me it was like it checked off a box. We never had brussel sprouts. The few times we had them we were suspicious of them and complained about them, so Mom fixed something else. I was well into my fifties before I realized I really like brussel sprouts. Who knew?”

Sloan now thinks he may have missed the point.

“If we give up something that doesn’t touch us, then I don’t think we get any credit for just checking something off a box,” Sloan said.

More here-

https://www.al.com/life/2019/03/bishop-kee-sloan-lent-means-more-than-giving-up-brussel-sprouts.html

How Eastern Orthodox's ‘Forgiveness Sunday’ could save us from our Facebook feeds

From American Magazine-

As we enter deeper into Lent and continue to abstain from certain foods and habits, even those who have given up constantly checking Facebook and Twitter cannot retreat entirely from our divided, toxic political environment.

Partly because of my work in community and government relations for a Jesuit university, and partly the responsibility of simply being a citizen I will continue to take in news. This means I will inevitably be exposed to the usual mix of “fake news,” political grandstanding and negative partisanship—what the Stanford political scientists Shanto Iyengar and Masha Krupenkin call “a primal sense of ‘us against them.’”

Can our preparations for Easter help us cope with this reality? Can they do so not only now, but throughout the year?

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition in which I worship, the season of Lent begins with a “Forgiveness Vespers.” At the end of the service, each member of the community proceeds to the front of the church to exchange with the priest and fellow parishioners—the whole church—a plea of repentance.

More here-

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/03/15/how-eastern-orthodoxs-forgiveness-sunday-could-save-us-our-facebook-feeds

God’s Message on ‘Ash Valentine’s Day’: True Love Dies

From Christianity Today-

Today, on Valentine’s Day, while the world is bedecked with schmaltzy red and pink hearts, I will stand before kneeling members of my congregation and tell them that they are going to die. This, without a doubt, is among the most punk rock things I have ever done.

For the first time in 45 years, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day, a liturgical feast day commemorating not one but two martyrdoms. The holiday—in old English, hāligdæg, or “holy day”—has been scrubbed of its bloody beginnings and now finds its chief significance in market share and revenue generation. (Houston Asset Management tracked 2017’s Valentine sales as just over $18 billion in their yearly “Cost of Loving” index.)

With its declaration of human finitude and mortality, Ash Wednesday is always counter-cultural, but when it falls on the very day that chalky candy hearts proclaim “Be Mine,” “Wink Wink,” and (my favorite) “U R A 10,” the contrast is particularly stark.

More here-

http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2018/february/gods-message-on-ash-wednesday-valentines-day-true-love-dies.html

Love, Ash Wednesday, and Living Into Lent

From Pittsburgh-

Dear Friends in Christ,

I was raised Episcopalian and, as a youth, I loved Ash Wednesday. What could be cooler than having a huge black cross smeared on your forehead? If I thought the priest hadn't done a decent job, I'd touch it up, while looking in a mirror to make it more emphatic. Of course the thing it stood for — the universe of conviction, grace, repentance and amendment of life — was completely foreign to me. Though I had said them nearly every Sunday while growing up, I never really understood those weighty lines in the old general confession at Morning Prayer about "our manifold sins and wickedness" and that "the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable." I didn't know who they were talking about; through my teenage years and into my early twenties I felt fine. The only burden I found intolerable was other people, particularly those who would challenge my pride, or who had the temerity to suggest that I wasn't running my world very well.


More here-

https://www.episcopalpgh.org/love-ash-wednesday-and-living-into-lent/

A Catholic priest pens the Anglican Archbishop’s prayer book

From Crux-

For those that have followed the close collaboration and friendship between Pope Francis and Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, it will come as no surprise that the spiritual head of the Church of England selected a Roman Catholic priest’s manuscript for his 2018 Lenten prayer book.

Luigi Gioia, a Benedictine priest and academic scholar, has spent the past two decades bringing together ecumenical thought and spirituality in both the Church and the classroom.

Gioia is a professor of Systematic Theology at the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo in Rome and also a research associate at the Von Hügel Institute in Cambridge, England. Along with his academic work, he has also given retreats around the world. His new book, Say it to God: In Search of Prayer, was just released last month and offers practical reflections particularly designed for the Lenten season.

He spoke with Crux about what monastics offer the modern age and how “the more we grow in authentic prayer, the greater our compassion grows.”

More here-

https://cruxnow.com/faith/2018/02/14/catholic-priest-pens-anglican-archbishops-prayer-book/

When Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day, what’s a clergyperson to do?

From RNS-

It’s Valentine’s Day, a time for chocolate, roses and perhaps a dinner date. But it’s also Ash Wednesday, which for many Christians is the start of Lent, a period of penitence that precedes Easter Sunday.

How do clergy reconcile this calendar clash, the first of its kind since 1945? Approaches abound:

An Oregon clergy couple celebrated Valentine’s Day early on a recent road trip because they knew they’d be busy at a United Methodist church’s Ash Wednesday service on Feb. 14.
An Episcopal priest in Maryland has prepared a “Lovesong” service for Ash Wednesday that emphasizes various kinds of love that can be celebrated on Valentine’s Day.
An upstate New York Catholic bishop suggested Mardi Gras might be a good time for romance this year.

More here-

https://religionnews.com/2018/02/14/when-ash-wednesday-falls-on-valentines-day-whats-a-clergyperson-to-do/

I bring my kids to Ash Wednesday worship. Here’s why.

From Grow Christians-

As a child, I was somewhat confused about death. I blame Star Wars.

The original Star Wars movie came out when I was three; seeing it with my family remains one of my earliest memories. My meditation on the movie continued over a comic-book adaptation of the story that I read over and over until it finally fell apart from over-reading a couple of years later. My first conscious experience of “death” was Obi Wan Kenobi cut down by Darth Vader in a dramatic lightsaber duel—and his subsequent disappearance.

Thus, I thought that’s what everybody did when they died: their body just vanished like Ben Kenobi’s.

Around that time, my maternal grandfather passed away. I was so puzzled when my mom and dad told me that they were going to the viewing; I distinctly remember wondering, “Since he disappeared, what is it that they are going to go see…?”

Parents might be reluctant to take their children to a service like Ash Wednesday because of its thematic content; the two big things on tap are death and sin. If they’re anything like me at that age, your kids have already been exposed to the concept of death, if only in movies. Indeed, if your kids have seen the virtually obligatory Disney canon, they’ve seen death used as a plot device that turns on them understanding something about it. Think of the shooting of Bambi’s mom or the crushing of Ray the Cajun firefly in The Princess and the Frog.

More here-

http://www.growchristians.org/2016/02/08/i-bring-my-kids-to-ash-wednesday-worship-heres-why/

Good Book Club among diverse Lenten tools offered by the Episcopal Church

From ENS-

 Instead of seeing this Lenten season as a time to do without, you can approach it from a more plentiful perspective: an opportunity to grow closer to Jesus, with more resources than ever.

That’s how Presiding Bishop Michael Curry sees it. Lent can be a chance to deepen your intimacy with Christ, he said in a video about helpful Lenten tools, including the Good Book Club.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which falls on Feb. 14 this year – coinciding with Valentine’s Day – and it lasts through Thursday, March 29, when the Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday begins.

Typically, Lent involves fasting and abstinence of some sort, inspired by the 40 days and nights Jesus fasted in the wilderness, according to several Bible passages, including Luke 4:1-13. Christians are invited “to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word,” according to page 265 of the Book of Common Prayer.

More here-

https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2018/02/05/good-book-club-among-diverse-lenten-tools-offered-by-the-episcopal-church/

NORTH AMERICAN ANGLICAN AND LUTHERAN LEADERS OFFER ECUMENICAL REFLECTIONS

From Joy 105-

The Presiding Bishop of the US-based Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, and Archbishop Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada, have joined with their Lutheran colleagues to offer a series of Lenten reflections. Together with Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and National Bishop Susan Johnson from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, they have prepared reflections for Ash Wednesday, the five weeks in Lent, Palm Sunday and the Triduum.

Each reflection begins with a series of four Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments, a Psalm and a Gospel – with three-sets for the Triduum. These are followed by a reflection by one of the bishops and a prayer. In the first of the reflections, for Ash Wednesday (14 February), Bishop Elizabeth Eaton writes about the need for racial equity in churches, saying: “We have been claimed in baptism, buried with Christ in a death like his, to be raised with Christ in a resurrection like his. We have already died the only death that really matters, and yet… We do not recognize the full humanity of others.”

More here-

http://joy105.com/index.php/2018/02/01/north-american-anglican-and-lutheran-leaders-offer-ecumenical-reflections/

The Fascinating Story Behind the Rarest of Liturgical Devices: the Crotalus

From Church Pop-

The Holy Triduum is the shortest – but most important! – liturgical season of the year. Beginning with the liturgy on the evening of Holy Thursday, it lasts three days until Easter Sunday.

Due to some unique rules for the Triduum, if you attend Triduum liturgies, you may hear one of the rarest of liturgical instruments: the crotalus.

The what? Here’s an explanation.

In the Roman Rite, altar bells are not supposed to be rung after the Gloria in the liturgy on the evening of Holy Thursday, and are supposed to remain unused until the Gloria on Holy Saturday. This is supposed to make things more somber as we remember the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But, during this short period of time, is anything supposed to take its place? That’s where the crotalus comes in. The Church’s liturgical rubrics don’t prescribe a replacement for altar bells, but there is a long-standing tradition of using a wooden clapper or noise-maker in its place. This serves to both mark the same events as the altar bells, but in a less “sweet” way and thus maintain the somber tone.

More here- 

https://churchpop.com/2016/03/23/rarest-liturgical-objects-crotalus/

GEORGE HERBERT IN LENT

From First Things-

The Anglican pastor and poet George Herbert died of tuberculosis on March 1, 1633, just one month shy of his fortieth birthday. Like his famous contemporary and friend John Donne and his nineteenth-century American echo Emily Dickinson, Herbert did not publish his poems during his lifetime. From his deathbed he entrusted them to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, granting him permission to either destroy or preserve them. The poems, he said, contained “a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul.” Later that year they were published in Cambridge as The Temple, and they have never been out of print since then.

Izaak Walton’s hagiographical account of Herbert’s life, published in 1670, helped to shape the iconic image of him as “the poet of a placid and comfortable easy piety” (T. S. Eliot)—not to say the quintessential Anglican perched midway between the rigors of Geneva and the extravagance of Rome. This image of Herbert and his place in the history of English spirituality prevailed in a 1907 collection of his poems which the editor introduced in this way:

More here-

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/03/george-herbert-in-lent

What is Shrove Tuesday?

From Alabama-

It's Shrove Tuesday today, also known as Shrovetide Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday. So what does "Shrove" mean? And why are some Christians eating pancakes today?

Pancakes were traditionally eaten on the day before Ash Wednesday because they were a way to use up eggs, milk, and sugar before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent. Liturgical fasting during Lent emphasizes eating plainer food and refraining from "pleasurable" foods such as meat, dairy and eggs. Many people "give something up" during Lent as a way to prepare for Easter.

Shrove is the past tense of shrive, which means to gain absolution of sins by confession and repentance. Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Tuesday in some western European countries. The pancake aspect is not as widely observed in the United States as it is in England.

More here-

http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2017/02/what_is_shrove_tuesday.html

LGBT: “Glitter Ash Wednesday”?

From TruNews-

LGBT group adds glitter to ash on the traditional cross on the forehead. What's the point, doesn't Ash Wednesday already have an important and powerful message?

The group reportedly indicates that the intention behind adding glitter to the ash on the cross placed on foreheads on Ash Wednesday March 1, 2017, is so that their message is advanced. For Christians, Ash Wednesday already has a very important message for the people, but the LGBT group called Parity feels they have something to add.

The Christian Post reports that the event is known as "Glitter Ash Wednesday," and churches from 21 states and Canada will be taking part in the Ash Wednesday event. "Glitter Ash Wednesday" is being coordinated by the New York-based LGBT group Parity, as well as prominent Episcopal priest, activist and author the Rev. Elizabeth Edman. The Rev. Marian Edmonds-Allen, executive director of Parity, told The Christian Post that the purpose of Glitter Ash Wednesday is to serve as a witness to an "inclusive Christian message."

- See more at:

http://www.trunews.com/article/lgbt-glitter-ash-wednesday#sthash.s2CLZsLv.dpuf

In Good Faith: Spring Fling

From Oregon-

It started with a throwaway Facebook post. A lament that, given what I do for a living, I would never get to go to spring training. I mean, the season of Lent, the busiest time of year for parish clergy, just happens to coincide with Major League Baseball’s own season of preparation. Christians may be preparing for Easter but ballplayers are preparing for Opening Day, so there are a few parallels. If you’re desperate enough.

Getting to see my beloved hometown Baltimore Orioles play in spring training has crept up my bucket list over the years. Okay, I don’t actually keep a bucket list, but if I did it would be near the top. Connecting with my inner child, combined with some warm sun after surviving another New England winter — what could be better? Alas. Maybe when I retire.

(snip)

And so, in-between innings, we talked about life and death, faith and family. Time stood still as the three of us laughed and cheered and talked about the things that really matter in life — the relationships that define us and shape our identity — and the sense of peace in the face of death that, even as it comes from a life well-lived, defies all understanding.

More here-

http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20160322/NEWS/160329901

Lent: Muslims stand in solidarity with Christians by tweeting what they will give up until Easter

From The Independent-

In a show of solidarity, Muslims are standing with Christians and giving up guilty pleasures for lent.

For Christians, lent is a period of self-restraint, marked by fasting, repentance, prayer and self-control. Luxury or rich foods, such as meat and dairy are often avoided by those taking part.

Abstention from personal “bad habits” such as watching television or eating too much sugar is also commonly practised.

The observance starts on Ash Wednesday and lasts until Easter, as Christians imitate the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in a desert before being blessed by John the Baptist.

Using #Muslims4Lent, followers of Islam are tweeting photos of themselves in which they declare what they will be giving up.

More here-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/lent-muslims-stand-in-solidarity-with-christians-by-tweeting-what-they-will-give-up-until-easter-10058233.html

What I learnt from 46 consecutive days in church

From The BBC-

For the Lent just gone by, I resolved to go to church every day. I'm a Catholic, so it would be Mass every day for more than a month. It felt like it would be a real struggle - a penance. It turned out to be anything but. It was a rich and enriching experience - spiritually, obviously, but I was also enraptured by the churches themselves, the communities they serve, and the people with whom I shared all those Masses.

I made it extra hard for myself by undertaking to go to a different church every day, so by Easter Sunday I'd been before 46 different priests in 46 different churches in 46 days. Someone pointed out to me at around the 35-priest mark that even the Pope probably hadn't heard Mass said by so many different priests in so many different churches in such a short space of time.

More here-

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32849125

What Would Jesus Do (for Lent)?

From "Mockingbird"-

There is a widely preached theology which tells us that we can somehow identify with Jesus. This lens is all too often used to justify whatever behavior we are interested in spiritualizing. And so we get to be angry because Jesus turned over tables in the temple. We get to invoke righteous indignation at politicians or religious figures because Jesus yelled at the Pharisees and the hypocrites. At Lent, our WWJD theology is allowed to go into overdrive. We must “give up” something in order to identify ourselves with the suffering and self-denial of Jesus in the desert.

While all of this sounds earnest and well-intentioned, this theology misses the point–devastatingly so. Jesus wasn’t just hanging out in the desert, dancing to the beat of a one man drum circle. Jesus was going toe to toe with the Satan himself. And there’s nothing relatable about that for us.

More here-

http://www.mbird.com/2015/02/what-would-jesus-do-for-lent/