The Great 100 Days of Lent and Easter are underway once more: 50 days of Lent, then 50 days of Easter.
As we make our way through Lent once more, we remember the ancient practice of our Christian forebears to engage this first 50 of the Great 100 Days as a time of discernment. What needs alignment? Realignment? Attention? Both in our individual lives and in our life together.
To mark this season as different from Epiphanytide which it follows and Eastertide which it precedes, we remove some things and reduce or decrease others. You can imagine these as collective practices of fasting or scaling back between these two big seasons of feasting (Epiphany and Easter).
Among the things that go away entirely for the season are the ringing of bells, the placement of fresh flowers on the altar, the use of the word "Alleluia" in worship, the singing of the Gloria at Sunday Eucharists, and the commemoration of saints days during weekday Eucharists. The things reduced include the length of sermons and the number and length of announcements.
Additionally, we front load the corporate Confession at Sunday Eucharists. We sing the Trisagion (or the Kyrie some years) rather than the Gloria. And we prepare candidates for baptism at that most traditional service of baptism of all, the Great Vigil of Easter.
Though a season of different textures, flavors, and emphases liturgically and otherwise, Lent is not a time for drudgery but rather for joy. Joy in unburdening ourselves of practices, ideas, and habits that no longer serve us. Joy in taking up, taking on, or returning to new practices that give us life. Joy in understanding more deeply and fully what God is guiding us toward in this particular liturgical season and this particular season of our lives as individual followers of Jesus and as the congregation of St Paul's.
Journey well and enjoy!
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