We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

2025 Sun March 9

Introduction to Lent

“Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencton” – meaning “spring” or “lengthening” from the time of year when the days grow long.  The season begins on Ash Wednesday and ends with the Easter Triduum (Maundy Thursday through Easter Day), covering 40 days (excluding Sundays which are little feasts of the Resurrection).  There are three key ideas to Lent:

1 Lent is in imitation of Christ -Early Christians observed “a season of penitence and fasting” in preparation for the Paschal feast, or Pascha (BCP, pp. 264-265). The season now known as Lent (from an Old English word meaning “spring,” the time of lengthening days) has a long history. Originally, in places where Pascha was celebrated on a Sunday, the Paschal feast followed a fast of up to two days. In the third century this fast was lengthened to six days. Eventually this fast became attached to, or overlapped, another fast of forty days, in imitation of Christ’s fasting in the wilderness.   40 is also connected to   Moses’ 40 days with God on Mount Sinai, and Elijah’s 40 days of

2 Lent is for preparing for baptism – Easter has been the high point and culmination of the Christian year  in remembrance and celebration of Jesus’s resurrection and, consequently, of our redemption. As such, Easter was regarded from the earliest times as the most appropriate time for persons to enter the church through the sacrament of baptism.

Four elements leading to baptism were developed – entering, prayer/growth, illumination, and commitment . According to author Alexander Shaia in Hidden Power of the Gospel  these steps  “perfectly echo the lessons taught in the gospel order of Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke. Scholars tell us that the full four-step process leading to baptism had formally appeared by 300 CE. The four-step process for baptism and the gospel sequence so perfectly mirror each other that we surmise the two grew together and likely became common practice in the same time period, sometime between 180 and 300 CE.”

The candidate themselves realized they had to ready themselves in mind and spirit.  By the end of the second century, all Christians fasted at least a day or  more in preparation for Easter, depending upon the level of their devotion. By the fourth century, it had become customary for devout priests and lay persons to join the catechumens in their more intense fasts, instructions and other preparations.

3 Lent is a time of  individual restoration and strengthening the community –Some believe that the word “Lent” may derive from the Latin “lentare”, which means “to bend.” This understanding reinforces a sense of Lent as a time of preparation for personal and collective transformation. Having nurtured ourselves through Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, Lent becomes the time to look truthfully at ourselves and make changes.  Alternately the time was important for those guilty of notorious sins who were being restored to the Christian assembly,  

Historically, it was also used by the church to solidify the Christian community in its early years. 

It wasn’t easy being a Christian in the centuries after Jesus . Lent grew up during the “growing pains” of Christianity. Conversion divided families and communities.   The Church needed to clarify the meaning of Christian faith and life so that its members would form a community that could withstand the pressures of an inhospitable environment. 

So Lent over the centuries has broadened its range of activities. Yes , it is a time of  individual scrutiny – “giving up ”  fasting, abstinence, penance  but more importantly a time of “growing into” through  prayer, self-discipline, study, reflection and reaching out and serving others. 

We don’t just do it individually but also collectively in Lent.   It is a special time for the whole Church to be on a retreat, to take inventory and reexamine priorities, to leave sin and self behind in the love and service of God and our neighbors. To keep a good Lent means to draw closer to God and one another and to prepare ourselves once again to renew our covenant with God through the reciting of our baptismal vows. Lent is a time to prepare to enter afresh into the mystery of Jesus ‘ resurrection and importantly our redemption.

Lent is:

  • A time for looking at the things we do that are wrong or that tempt us, asking God’s and other people’s forgiveness;
  • A time for giving up things that keep us from being loving people;
  • A time for doing extra things that will help us grow closer to God;
  • A time to be more aware of what it means to love as God loves us;
  • A time to ask God to help us to be more loving, remembering that God is always ready to strengthen us.

 

Lectionary – Lent 1 Year C

I. Theme – Developing strength and hope in the face of temptation and evil

“ Christ in the Desert ” – Nikolas Kramskoy (1872)

“After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. ” –Luke 4:1

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:

Old Testament – Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Psalm – Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 Epistle – Romans 10:8b-13 Gospel – Luke 4:1-13

Today’s readings offer strength and hope in the face of temptation and evil. Deuteronomy recalls God’s great deliverance and encourages Israel to depend solely on God. Paul declares that salvation comes to those who call on Jesus as lord. In today’s gospel, Jesus trusts solely in God and thus defeats the temptations presented by the devil

Lent begins as a journey to the cross, a journey of repentance and self-denial, a journey of serving others. We are also reminded that our ancestors were sojourners, that we are called not only to seek forgiveness but to forgive and reconcile with others, and that we have faith in the same God, the same Christ, and when we are seeking God, we are seeking relationship with each other. The journey reminds us that we are in this together, pilgrims to the cross, where we put to death what has separated us from God and live in the hope of resurrection.

The journey begins with where we are now and that we are the beloved of God. This week, focus on our most basic routines: eating, drinking, and washing. Try a new pattern of life for a day, a week, or the whole Lenten season. For example, adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet, with every bite reducing suffering and caring for creation. Or, whenever you wash your face, your body, the dishes – whenever you encounter water, intentionally recall the waters of baptism. Remember Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, and hear again God’s voice proclaiming the truth of the Gospel to you: “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

We are not alone in facing life’s challenges as Jesus was in Luke. Although we might raise the question about how the indigenous Canaanites felt about the coming of the Hebrews, the key element of this passage is its affirmation that God hears, responds, and acts. God is influenced by our cries of anguish – God hears the cries of the poor, oppressed, and vulnerable. God is present in the soup kitchen, the unemployment line, and the bedside. God does not control the outcome of our quests for wholeness, but is a factor in bringing about moments of comfort, possibilities of change, and the movements of liberation and affirmation.

Jesus Christ, our Champion against the devil, endures and overcomes “every temptation” (Luke 4:13) on our behalf. He worships the Lord, His God, and serves Him only by trusting the Word of His Father: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Jesus’ victory is now ours through His gracious Word, which is not far away but near us — in our mouth and in our heart, in the proclamation of repentance and faith

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Arts and Faith, Lent 1, Year C

This scene of the temptation of Christ comes from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a 15th-century book of hours, or personal devotional book created especially for Duke Jean de Berry. The book offered meditations based on the time of day, as well as the feasts and seasons of the liturgical calendar. As the Latin text on the bottom tells us, this scene comes from the Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent.

The illuminated scene shows Christ resisting the temptations of the devil atop an ornately detailed Gothic castle. This castle was modeled after a real one, the Duke’s own castle at Mehun-sur-Yevre. Christ standing on top of this castle in the context of his temptation is an image that must have been deeply challenging for the Duke and meant to recall him to humility and conversion.

The scene is a conflation of the three temptations Jesus experienced in the desert. On top of the castle’s tower, he is experiencing the heights the devil asked him to jump from, and seeing all the riches of the world that might entice him. The devil completes the narrative by handing Jesus a stone to turn into bread. Alluding to all three temptations atop of the castle shows the Duke that he is in danger of succumbing to all of these. But rather than casting the Duke into despair and shame, the image offers hope and encouragement: we spot on the bottom right a mighty lion that has treed an ape-like adversary, a metaphor perhaps of the Duke conquering his personal temptations.

The three swans swimming in the moat further connect this scene to the Duke. An often-used symbol for de Berry, the swan was an homage to a woman for whom de Berry’s love was unrequited. To spot the swans in this image connects sin and temptation to one’s own hurts and woundedness. Our own suffering and pain can lead us to grasp tightly at our own reality, sometimes to the point of tearing our wounds even deeper. Conversion of heart means letting go and trusting in God’s healing love to mend the brokenness of our lives.

The Call to a Holy Lent

How do we fulfill the call for a Holy Lent?

A. By self-examination. This means setting aside time to intentionally reflect upon one’s thoughts and actions, acknowledging the ways in which we fall short of God’s goodness and love.

B. By repentance. To repent means to have “a change of heart” and to “turn around” from actions and attitudes contrary to God’s will. This means honestly confessing our sins to God and receiving his forgiveness.

C. By prayer. This calls us to take part in the Church’s corporate acts of worship as well as the setting aside of time for personal prayer.

D. By fasting. To fast is to abstain from certain foods or all food for a period of time. Fasting separates you from the distractions of this world and it brings us into a closer union with God. It allows us to hear God better and fully rely upon Him.

E. By self-denial. Denying oneself in Lent means giving up certain luxuries, even legitimate pleasures, in order to focus oneself spiritually.

F. By reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. In Lent, believers are especially called to read and reflect on Scripture in a daily way.

Shrove Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Pieter Aertszen’s The Pancake Bakery, circa 1508

Great weather in 2024 and 20 in attendance on this day before Lent begins:

Photos, Feb. 13, 2024


(full size gallery)

The word “shrove” is the past tense of “shrive”, which means to confess. In the Middle Ages, this day was a time for people to confess their sins and ask forgiveness for them. This allowed Christians to enter into the season of Lent and prepare for Easter with a clean spirit.

It is also a day for frolicking – several places schedule pancake races. (We had one in 2011.) They race down streets carrying a frying pan with a cooked pancake in it and flipping it as you race.

Other names for this day include Carnival (farewell to meat) and Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday of the French tradition). Ironically, masks play an important role in many celebrations of Carnival around the world. What a shame that we can’t gather in person in our masks for a real Carnival celebration!

It is believed that Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday started in 1445 in Olney. Olney is in Buckinghamshire, England. A lady was getting carried away with making pancakes when she heard the church bells for the Shrove Tuesday mass. She was late! The lady ran to the church with all of her pancakes and that’s where the pancake tradition started.

Shrove Tuesday was the day for consuming dairy products. By giving up dairy products, people marked Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the wilderness. This custom is a remnant of an earlier tradition in which people prepared for the Lenten fast by using up food in their homes that they would not be eating during the season of Lent. These ingredients were made into pancakes, a meal which came to symbolize preparation for the discipline of Lent. It is exactly 47 days before Easter.

St. Peter’s did have a King Cake for dessert.King Cake is a round cake decorated with different colored icing and sprinkles.It is said to have originated in Old World France and Spain was associated with Epiphany during the Middle Ages but evolved further to be extended to Mardi Gras, particularly as the tradition came to America. Our version is closer to the Spanish sweet bread rather than the French which is filled bread with almond creme.

Our King Cake did included a small plastic baby. A commercial bakery called McKenzie’s in New Orleans. popularized the baby trinket that was baked into cakes back in the 1950s; they were originally made of porcelain but later swapped out for an easier-to-find plastic version. Whoever gets the baby must host next year’s celebration

Season of Lent – Dennis Bratcher

The season of Lent has not been well observed in much of evangelical Christianity, largely because it was associated with "high church" liturgical worship that some churches were eager to reject. However, much of the background of evangelical Christianity, for example the heritage of John Wesley, was very "high church." Many of the churches that had originally rejected more formal and deliberate liturgy are now recovering aspects of a larger Christian tradition as a means to refocus on spirituality in a culture that is increasingly secular.

Originating in the fourth century of the church, the season of Lent spans 40 weekdays beginning on Ash Wednesday and climaxing during Holy Week with Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday), Good Friday, and concluding Saturday before Easter. Originally, Lent was the time of preparation for those who were to be baptized, a time of concentrated study and prayer before their baptism at the Easter Vigil, the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord early on Easter Sunday. But since these new members were to be received into a living community of Faith, the entire community was called to preparation. Also, this was the time when those who had been separated from the Church would prepare to rejoin the community.

Today, Lent is marked by a time of prayer and preparation to celebrate Easter. Since Sundays celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the six Sundays that occur during Lent are not counted as part of the 40 days of Lent, and are referred to as the Sundays in Lent. The number 40 is connected with many biblical events, but especially with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for His ministry by facing the temptations that could lead him to abandon his mission and calling. Christians today use this period of time for introspection, self examination, and repentance. This season of the year is equal only to the Season of Advent in importance in the Christian year, and is part of the second major grouping of Christian festivals and sacred time that includes Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost.

Lent has traditionally been marked by penitential prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Some churches today still observe a rigid schedule of fasting on certain days during Lent, especially the giving up of meat, alcohol, sweets, and other types of food. Other traditions do not place as great an emphasis on fasting, but focus on charitable deeds, especially helping those in physical need with food and clothing, or simply the giving of money to charities. Most Christian churches that observe Lent at all focus on it as a time of prayer, especially penance, repenting for failures and sin as a way to focus on the need for God’s grace. It is really a preparation to celebrate God’s marvelous redemption at Easter, and the resurrected life that we live, and hope for, as Christians.

Mardi Gras or Carnival

Carnival, which comes from a Latin phrase meaning "removal of meat," is the three day period preceding the beginning of Lent, the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday immediately before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of the Lenten Season (some traditions count Carnival as the entire period of time between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday). The three days before Ash Wednesday are also known as Shrovetide ("shrove" is an Old English word meaning "to repent"). The Tuesday just before Ash Wednesday is called Shrove Tuesday, or is more popularly known by the French term Mardi Gras, meaning "Fat Tuesday," contrasting to the fasting during Lent. The entire three day period has now come to be known in many areas as Mardi Gras.

Carnival or Mardi Gras is usually a period of celebration, originally a festival before the fasting during the season of Lent. Now it is celebrated in many places with parades, costumes, dancing, and music. Many Christians’ discomfort with Lent originates with a distaste for Mardi Gras. In some cultures, especially the Portuguese culture of Brazil, the French culture of Louisiana, and some of the Caribbean cultures such as Trinidad, it has tended to take on the excesses of wild and drunken revelry. There has been some attempt in recent years to change this aspect of the season, such as using Brazilian Carnival parades to focus on national and cultural history. Many churches now observe Mardi Gras with a church pancake breakfast or other church meal, eating together as a community before the symbolic fasting of Lent begins.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday, the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday, is the first day of the Season of Lent. Its name comes from the ancient practice of placing ashes on worshippers’ heads or foreheads as a sign of humility before God, a symbol of mourning and sorrow at the death that sin brings into the world. It not only prefigures the mourning at the death of Jesus, but also places the worshipper in a position to realize the consequences of sin.  (See Reflections on Ash Wednesday). Ash Wednesday is a somber day of reflection on what needs to change in our lives if we are to be fully Christian.

In the early church, ashes were not offered to everyone but were only used to mark the forehead of worshippers who had made public confession of sin and sought to be restored to the fellowship of the community at the Easter celebration. However, over the years others began to show their humility and identification with the penitents by asking that they, too, be marked as sinners. Finally, the imposition of ashes was extended to the whole congregation in services similar to those that are now observed in many Christian churches on Ash Wednesday. Ashes became symbolic of that attitude of penitence reflected in the Lord’s prayer:  “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”  (Luke 11:4, NRSV).

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The Ash Wednesday Service

Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

We began our observation of Jesus’ death and resurrection by preparing for Easter with a season of penitence.   Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent.

The liturgy provides words about the purpose of Lent. “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

The service started without music and opening readings and flowed into a collect and readings, followed by the sermon. Examine yourself to see what divides you from others, from the earth and from God, and repent from these divisive things. Prayer, fasting, and denying yourselves these divisive things will be helped by meditating on God’s holy Word.

There is the “Invitation to the Observance of a Holy Lent”. It states that Lent’s purpose over the 40 days is for preparing new members through Holy Baptism and to restore those “had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church.” In a sense it is for the restoration of the Body of Christ, uniting with the new and those who had fallen away.