Lent 2026 Resources
Lent? What is this?
We are in the liturgical season of Lent. It is a time of fasting, of reflection, and of repentance, as we journey with our Lord Jesus towards The Last Supper, The Passion, The Crucifixion, and The Burial. This may seem morbid and unnecessarily macabre. After all, isn’t Christianity all about happiness and life?
Well, yes… and no.
The entirety of the human experience, and the resounding witness of the Scriptures proclaims the truth of sin and pain and curse; of briar-thorn, brother-against-brother, and empires built of dirt. Any kind of happiness which does not take these into account is not a true happiness. It is a shallow fiction. Ignorance is in fact not bliss. And there is no resurrection apart from the Cross.
The Gospel of Jesus offers us the single alternative to either cheap happiness or hopeless nihilism: the Crucified God. The One who overcomes death with his own death; the One who brings life from death. For the Christian, Lent is a joyful (albeit difficult) time which leads us through the way of the Cross and into the Joy of Easter. As Dr. Leithart suggests, “The church year is painted in chiaroscuro. Without the darker hues of Lent, Easter is two-dimensional.”
Journeying towards Easter together.
At All Saints we want to journey together towards Easter, keeping Lent in common by corporately observing a few things. This is not an obligation it is a joyous invitation to walk with us as much as you are able.
Fasting together: No meats, no sweets, no alcohol. As always, pregnant and nursing mothers and children are exempted as necessary. With this, remember a few things: (1) This merits you nothing, it is not about earning a notch on your spiritual belt, but rather participating in the life of the Church and responding to the goodness of God. (2) Sometimes Christian hospitality demands that we break our Lenten fast, in those moments do so gladly. (3) When you break, rightly or wrongly, get back-up; if you’ve started the Lenten fast late, jump-on in; when you give the Lord your all you also give him your worst; be of good cheer, you’re in good company among our stumbling, halting, messy little fellowship. (4) Sundays and “Red Letter" feast days (viz. the Feast of St. Joseph and the Feast of the Annunciation) are days of festive joy —the fast ends; as you have joined us in fasting make sure to exercise the discipline of feasting well too!
Praying together: We are committing, as families and individuals, to praying at least one daily office from the Book of Common Prayer, each day, Monday thru Saturday, during Lent. For our purposes right now use the truncated offices for “Families and Individuals” which begin on p. 66 of the BCP.
Lent Explained from the Book of Common Prayer
The call to a holy Lent from the 2019 Book of Common prayer explains that “[t]he first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful, were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. In this manner, the whole Congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need that all Christians continually have to renew our repentance and faith.”
We invite you to join us as we journey towards the joy of Easter as a community —after all, that is what penitence has always had as its goal: true and unbounded joy.