A Lenten message from Bishop Haynes

In the Ash Wednesday Liturgy, the Celebrant says this: "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..." How do we accomplish this observance of a holy Lent? How do we do all those things—self-examination and repentance, prayer, fasting, self-denial, reading of Scripture? We are all certainly busy and overwhelmed with the demands of life...to add other disciplines seems impossible. 

Lent is a good time to establish new habits. Those who have studied the process of forming habits will tell you that establishing a new habit takes about six weeks. Lent, it turns out, is six weeks long! So, what new habit could you establish in the run-up to Easter? 

Earlier in our life together, my husband was an educator, at both the secondary and collegiate level. One year during Lent, he taught a Muslim student who was observing Ramadan. Since the Muslim was obligated to fast until sundown, he would come to my husband's classroom to pass the time during lunch. One day they got into a discussion about what it means to fast. The Muslim student offered that he had been taught that "one's ears should fast from gossip and one's tongue from unkind words." I am captivated by this idea! What would it be like for my ears to fast from listening to gossip and my tongue to fast from uttering any unkindness? Could I do that??!! We all know how tempting it is to listen to salacious things about others and to snap at others unkindly. Can I make a conscious decision to fast or abstain from this behavior—to bid my ears to fast from gossip and my tongue from unkind words? 

In a world fraught with division and fracture, gossip abounds; and kindness is in short supply. What if I, one day at a time, decided that when gossip approaches my hearing, I would shut it down? What if I, one day at a time, chose to speak only kind, uplifting things? What if a lot of us were to do that? How would that change the world? 

Perhaps you already have a Lenten discipline, but perhaps not. If not, I encourage you to consider the discipline of fasting and abstaining from gossip and unkindness. You can decide on a daily basis to engage this discipline. We won't be perfect at it. But we might make a little progress. And in so doing, the world will change. 

I invite you to a good and holy Lent. You continue in my prayers.

+Bishop Susan