About Us
Letter from the Vicar
Dear Friends
On 5 March Christians begin the journey through Lent on Ash Wednesday, a day of invitation to be reminded of the brokenness of humanity and God’s radical and abundant love that restores us in relationship with him. The symbolism of receiving the ash of burnt palm crosses from 2024 is a sign of our mourning and lamenting our wrong doing, and the consequence of this upon God’s desire to love us unconditionally, and the human activity that leads to fracture, fear, tension and conflict within human relationships.
Lent is a season where there is opportunity to reflect and allow our hearts, through taking on something, denying a pleasure here or there, and realigning our lives with God’s values, to be stretched, lengthened, and pruned, as we prepare to walk the way of Jesus’s cross and arrive at Easter.
People may feel that Lent is a time that has to be endured, rather than a time of finding God’s renewing love. The 40 days of Lent enable us to reprioritise our lives, how we spend our time, and to find opportunity to see where God blesses us and encourages us to be a blessing for others. Lent is a Spiritual MOT moment where we can make changes to old habits and come out of the season energised spiritually.
In our anxieties about the condition of the world and the future, given the continuing war in Ukraine and the fragile ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon with many commentators predicting a new World Order and greater danger to security than before, Lent gives us opportunity to give all these things, and more, back to God, asking God to heal and restore all things in love, peace and reconciliation.
Lent is lived against the backdrop of Easter and the light of Jesus’ resurrection, holding hope in a better future and believing that God will help us to see where we can build this in our relationships and dealings with one another.
May this six week period be for all of us an opportunity to lay down the things that burden us and take up the things that give fresh insight, energy, purpose and renewal in our spiritual as well as within our day to day lives.
Every blessing. Canon Tony