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 'Maureen's Musings'
March 2012
This year, March falls squarely into the Church season of Lent
- which means there will be Lent meals to celebrate together
and our Lent Course to study together - I commend both to you
and I am sure you will find details of both elsewhere in this
magazine....
"Over the years it may be that Lent has lost some of its
radical edge. For most people now it is a residual custom involving
the brief giving up of chocolate or alcohol. It was intended
to be much more. Historically, Lent was a time for strengthening
and preparation: a time when fasting strengthened flagging will-power
(not the other way around!); when prayer and meditation prepared
for Easter when baptismal vows were renewed. (And this year we
will have the chance to do that as we celebrate with the Fotherby
family the baptism of little Kaia on Easter Day). It was based
on Christ's forty days in the wilderness. Just as Jesus knew
how vital was that strengthening and preparation for what was
to come, so it seems did his early followers. In those tough
times, they understood, rather more than many of us, what a radical
and crucial calling they had to fulfil.
There is a risk today that many Christians will feel they have
lost their voice. So persuasive and eloquent are the voices raised
against faith in the public sphere - and often so subtly dismissive
- that we may feel we no longer believe we have a right to be
heard. So private might our religion become that propriety prevents
us either revealing our pain, or offering encouragement. So flabby
are our wills and so strong are our fears that we have lost the
sense of who we could become and what together we might accomplish.
That is why Lent remains important, and why Lent courses, entered
into with honesty and commitment, can be vital staging posts
in the journey towards fulfilling spiritual potential."
Much of what you have just read is a quote from the introduction
to a book I have been looking at recently .... It is a Lent course
book that we might well look at another year (it is not the subject
of this year's course - which is nevertheless interesting and
challenging - give it a go!) But the words seemed so fitting
at a time when the forces of secularisation are becoming so strident
in the media. I do think it high time that Christians stopped
being so diffident and apologetic about admitting to their faith
in public - not to 'ram it down the throat' of anyone else, but
just to calmly and definitely assert that faith matters. 'God
is cool' as our young people might put it. Faith determines
how we live our lives. It is the basis of so many of the institutions
of our Society. So this Lent I hope you can "Find your voice"
- and feel strengthened for the challenges and battles that lie
before us; and above all will feel confident in your faith -
both in private and in public.
Have a Blessed Lent
Maureen
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