Bishops’ Pastoral Letter for Lent

Dear family, this week as our church begins our Lenten journey with Jesus to the cross, we write to you with deep awareness of our hurting world and its impact on each of our lives. This year, more than most, our world, for which Jesus’ life was given, calls us into our Lenten disciplines: prayer, charity and the self-discipline of fasting. We want to encourage us all into these disciplines this Lent, not just because our world yearns for the kingdom of God to come in greater fullness, but also because these disciplines strengthen and support us to hold close to Jesus in distressing times.

Prayer
Both of us have deeply appreciated the gift of Take 10. This daily invitation to bring ourselves and our world into the loving and peaceful presence of God. We share this prayer again here:

May we encourage you to share this with others. Perhaps 10 more. The prayer is an invitation into the goodness, love and peace of God and it may be the doorway into the Kingdom of God for people who are feeling the hurts and pains of our world at this time and do not know how to respond.

The self-giving generosity of charity
We respond to the needs of our world with loving generosity in practical ways. We have agency to make a difference in the world around us and we choose to act with that power regarding the resources that we have. Charity is also an attitude of generosity in places of distress and conflict. Both of us are taking part in the Lambeth journey of Leadership in a Conflicted World. This means that our lives are freshly awakened with the stories we hear and share of ministering in places of pain and conflict, from our own threshold to our brothers and sisters bearing Gospel witness in places of past and current atrocities. The posture of charity shapes the invitations in this ministry of reconciliation, which are to be present, to be curious and to re-imagine. How might this posture bless and shape both your inner world and your outer impact in our world this Lent?

The self-discipline of fasting
Jesus urges his disciples to pray and fast. Both of us have experienced God particularly calling us to fast on behalf of others and our church many times in our lives. When we fast, we anchor ourselves into the need for God’s presence, God’s power and God’s kingdom to come. It is sometimes a way of encountering our own weakness, positioning our reliance upon God’s grace, inviting God’s strength to be made more perfect (2 Corinthians 12). When situations around us feel overwhelming, our discipline of fasting aligns us afresh to the living hope that we have in Christ and the fullness of God’s kingdom to come.

Finally, Lent reminds us of God’s choice to dwell with us in the fullness of our humanity, to be with us in the dust of our fears, our pains, our sickness and our longings. It is a journey of repentance in which we allow God to renew our minds and our lives, to heal, to transform, to convict. It is a season of sobriety and simplicity. Lent is, however, a season of preparation, it is not the end of the journey. In some ways, the greater confidence we have in the joyful resurrection power of our God, the more fully we can embrace the invitations of Lent.

May the gifts of simple acts of dedication and devotion, of service and sacrifice, minister God’s love for you, your neighbour and our world in these coming days and weeks. May they anchor you in Christ. May they minister peace.

Yours in Christ
+Justin and +Ellie