• A Preface for Ash Wednesday

  13/02/2021

  The following preface was written to mark the beginning of Lent and reflects the language and character of the Lenten material in the Scottish Liturgy 1982 and Daily Prayer of the Scottish Episcopal Church

  Dear Friends in Christ, it is the custom of Christian people to prepare to mark the time of Christ’s passion and resurrection by a season of penitence and fasting.

  The church calls each of us during these forty days to repent of all that causes harm to ourselves, harm to our earthly dwelling place and harm to our relationship with God.

  By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and devotion. In turning our hearts towards God, we discover anew the boundless grace of God.

  For God will help us to create beauty even within the turmoil of this chaotic world and will help us to gather a harvest of joy and gladness from lives of sorrow and care. Today and every day, God calls the wandering exile home.

  We are invited 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.

Previous Posts

• We should be wary of declaring martyrs

  08/04/2015

  One of the themes that has been emerging over the last few weeks is the desire to recognise people who have been killed by terrorists as martyrs. However, we should pause and ask whether that’s really the most appropriate language to be using. The Archbishop of Canterbury was eager to do this in his Easter…

• Easter Sermon

  05/04/2015

  I could see that they needed to get past. Their seats were on the other side of me – my right-hand side. I twisted my knees and they squeezed in and sat down. Two young men. Twentysomethings. Hipsters. All beards and tattoos. And everyone settled down to watch the play. And the hubbub settled down…

• The Triduum Promise

  02/04/2015

  Over the next couple of days, I will be entering into a different time zone. It is one thing to put the clock forward to British Summer Time but it is quite another to step into the triduum zone. The Triduum is the set of services that begin with the Maundy Thursday communion service tonight…

• Christians and Jews in Holy Week

  31/03/2015

  Over the last few years I’ve become much more aware of the things in the life of the Christian church which cause trouble for other people. Specifically, I took part in an interesting symposium a couple of years ago on how Christian preaching relates to Judaism. I learned a lot by listening to people there…