Tower and Town, February 2024

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Clergy Letter: An Early Lent

Easter is dated according to ancient practice. For the western church, using the Gregorian calendar, Easter always falls on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April, within about seven days after the astronomical full moon. (The eastern (Orthodox) tradition dates Easter using the Julian calendar, which in our Gregorian calendar puts Orthodox Easter between 4 April and 8 May.)

Over the past ten years or so, the dating of Easter has been the topic of renewed conversation between some of the major western Christian traditions. Within as little as five years, we could have moved to a fixed Sunday for Easter, perhaps the second or third Sunday of April according to a proposal by Archbishop Justin. Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and many Protestant traditions have discussed this extensively and agree that different dating does nothing for our global unity.

But for now, according to the traditional western method of dating Easter, Lent starts early this year with Ash Wednesday somewhat clashing with Valentine’s Day! Easter Sunday falls on the 31st of March.

‘Any old how... ’ on all of that: what is Lent for?

Like Advent, Lent is a penitential season (coming pretty quickly, this time, after Advent!), a time for reflection alone and with others on the grace and love of God and our own frailty and our natural self-focusedness. Lent’s a time to watch things come to life, and to enliven our own faith by engaging with the Word (Christ), through the word of God (the Bible) and through the activity of the Holy Spirit.

We have a marvellous opportunity this year to focus our walk through Lent in some of the writings of the great C.S. Lewis. Do look out within this edition of Tower & Town and the newsletters and websites of the individual churches to see what small group opportunities are being offered.

You’ll gain some new friends - at the least - and you might gain a very great deal more than that, neither early nor late, but right on time.

With every blessing,

Pete Sainsbury