Category: News

Bp. Paul Hewett’s Ideas for Lent

“The arena of the virtues has been thrown open.”

Things to give up…

Fasting – reducing the quantity of food, by having only one full meal during the day, possibly with no seconds, no alcohol and no dessert.

Abstinence – reducing the quality of food, by eating more simply, perhaps by not eating meat. For some people a good rule of abstinence would be to give up television for the day.

Notes about fasting and abstinence:
ordinary Fridays are days of abstinence. Every day in Lent is a day of fasting (except Sundays), and Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent are days of fasting and abstinence, with special emphasis on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Sundays, since they commemorate the Resurrection, are never days of fasting or abstinence. Those who are very young, very old, or infirm, or who are involved in strenuous manual labor, should not attempt to fast, or can fast from things other than food.

Giving up one thing, such as sweets, smoking, reading magazines, or watching television. Spend less time on line or surfing the web Work some more on giving up your besetting sin(s) and cultivating its opposite virtue. For example, give up complaining and cultivate thanking God and others.

Things to add…

(one or perhaps two. Don´t attempt too much; do what is realistic and practical)

•   Use the money saved from fasting and abstinence for your mite box offering, or to put in the plate on Sunday, or to give to a charity.
•   Read a chapter of the Bible every day
•   Read a book on prayer or the life of a saint
•   Say 5 decades of the Rosary every day
•   Say the Jesus Prayer 100 times on a prayer rope or Rosary. The Rosary and the Jesus Prayer can be offered while in the car. The bumps on the back of the steering wheel can be used as a Rosary or Prayer Rope.
•   Make a list of people and/or causes to pray for and use this every day; pray daily through the parish’s intercession list (copies are on the back table). Or, be especially in prayer every day for one person.
•   Spend three, or five, minutes a day in thanksgiving. Finish Lent with a list of the many blessings you enjoy. You will get ideas from the PB, pp. 33, 48, 50-53, 83, 591 and the Psalms.
•   Say Psalm 63 while washing up in the morning
• Clean some disorganized part of your home, car, garage, cellar, etc. or begin a task that has been delayed by procrastination.
• Answer overdue mail
•   When inclined to criticize someone, compliment or praise them instead.
•   To do any of the above, get up 10 or 15 or more minutes earlier in the morning.
•   Really observe Sunday as the Lord’s Day by going to Mass and (to the greatest extent possible) do your
chores on Saturday.
•   Go to Stations of the Cross or do the Stations at home
•   Read at home, or attend at Church, one or more of the Daily Offices (Morning and Evening Prayer). Learn how to read Morning and Evening Prayer at home. Do it once, by yourself, or with your family. Consider doing it (fully or in abbreviated form) every day. Consider the use of the Family Prayer section on pp. 587-600 of the Prayer Book.
•   Go to Confession before Easter The word “Lent” is actually an Anglo-Saxon nick-name in the household of faith, derived from the word “lengthen,” now that the days are lengthening.

Lent is an opportunity to let God open up a bigger space in you for Him to fill. It is our journey toward Passover, which our Lord accomplishes on the Cross, so that we can, by dying and rising with Him, pass from the brokenness of sin and death to new and indestructible life, in the wholeness of the new creation.

Queen’s chaplain resigns over cathedral Koran reading row saying he has a ‘duty’ to defend Christianity 

By Camilla Turner,

 

A chaplain to the Queen has resigned after publicly criticising a church that allowed a Koran reading during its service as part of an interfaith project.

The Rev Gavin Ashenden, who until this week was one of the 33 special chaplains to the Queen, said the reading was “a fairly serious error” and one which he had a duty to speak out about.

There are things we should not tolerate because they are destructive,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme.“I don’t accept the rather feeble accusation that intolerance is a bad thing.”

During a service at St Mary’s Episcopal in Glasgow earlier this month to mark the feast of the Epiphany, there was a reading of a passage from the Koran which said that Jesus was not the son of God.

The cathedral in Kelvinbridge had invited local Muslim worshippers to contribute to the service, which was aimed at improving relations between Christians and Muslims in Glasgow. But police were called after members of the church received “hate-filled messages” from far-right extremists after the service.

The Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, the Most Rev David Chillingworth, said that the Scottish Episcopal Church would review the work of St Mary’s. He said the church was “deeply distressed at the offence which has been caused”.

Dr Ashenden wrote a letter to The Times newspaper earlier this week, where he called on the church to apologise to Christians “suffering dreadful persecution at the hands of Muslims” and added that the denigration of Jesus in Christian worship would be called “blasphemy” by some.

He told BBC Radio 4 on Sunday: “The problem with what happened in Glasgow was that although it was presented as a way of building bridges and a way of educating people it was done badly in the wrong way in the wrong place in the wrong context.

“It should not happen in the holy Eucharist and particularly a Eucharist whose main intention is to celebrate Christ the word made flesh come into the world.

“To have a reading from the Koran at that point was a fairly serious error for the Christian worshipping community, but to choose the reading they chose doubled the error. Of all passages you might have read likely to cause offence, that was one of the most problematic.”

He said that he had to make a choice between the “important honour” of continuing in the role of royal chaplain, and having the ability to speak out on matters he felt strongly about.

“I think it’s clear to me that accepting the role of chaplain to the Queen does not give one a platform where one can speak controversially in the public space,” he said.

“So in those circumstances I think one has to choose between whether one wants to accept an important honour or whether one chooses to continue a debate in the public space.

“I am fairly clear in my own mind that my duty to my conscience, to my order, to my understanding of Christianity and my vocation is that I am supposed to be speaking out in the public space on behalf of the Christ I serve.”

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “Dr. Gavin Ashenden has tendered his resignation from the honorary position of Chaplain to The Queen. The Royal Household has accepted the resignation with immediate effect.”