Lent is an anglo-saxon word which best defined means Spring. The Spring was greeted by another season of the Christian Year the time of Lent (just as Winter sees the beginning of Advent; Pentecost leads us into Summer and Autumn - Ordinary time). Lent is definitely the most solemn of the Christian seasons. A time for serious reflection, repentance and thus renewal. As I have reflected during this first week of Lent and journeyed with the Lenten Guide (Journey Into Wholeness by Christine Sine) it has pushed me to look at my self. It is never pretty.

I don’t often plan well. This lenten season though I had decided to observe an old lenten practice of praying The Litany at least once a week (The late Robert Webber suggested Saturday’s were the tradition in his book, The Prymer, so I said, “why not?”), and that was just what I needed this week.

The Litany is a L-o-n-g prayer. It is really a kind of prayer service. I used a protestant version (without the invoking of the Saints) from An English Prayer Book (published by Oxford as a potential Alternate Alternative Service Book!?). In this version of the Litany it is a seven-fold prayer moving from Inviting God to hear to repentance (personal) to petitions to intercessions to the Lord’s Prayer to corporate repentance and to benediction.

A wonderful prayer. A needed time this past Saturday. It helped me repent. To change my way of thinking. To see with new eyes. To feel like I found my position and place again. This Lenten practice, setting aside and taking time to reflect and repent is something I realize I don’t naturally move toward. I am more apt to “keep going” and put things behind… Lent calls us to put some of life aside and reflect on who I am becoming and how am I living. This is good. The Litany helped me in facing some of that. I look forward to this and it is good.

At the same time I feel strangely alone.

Lent is meant to happen in community and the Litany is written to be said in community (I guess I will be exploring this theme throughout my Lenten experience) but my current Christian community doesn’t observe Lent, so I am observing it solo.