• A Preface for Ash Wednesday

    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.

3 responses to “Our own little Anglican Communion”

  1. Seph Avatar
    Seph

    Not to mention Aotearoa/New Zealand Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

  2. Bro David Avatar
    Bro David

    When I went to seminary in Seattle, WA, USA in the mid 1980s I took a summer term class at Vancouver School of Theology in the Diocese of New Westminster, Canada. While there I met Dean Peter’s current bishop, +Michael, who was himself dean of Christ Church Cathedral at that time. I still have his small book that he gave me, Rites For A New Age: Understanding the Book of Alternative Services. Vancouver is such a beautiful city.

  3. Allan Ronald Avatar

    That +Michael would be the Mike Ingham with whom I was at theological college in Edinburgh 40 years ago, then. A breath of fresh air in the place back then, if memory serves.

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