For anyone struggling with the idea of fasting, of discipline, and self-denial: let’s remember together that Lent is a means, not an end. We are preparing with joy to enter anew into the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. So for all for whom giving up yet more seems overwhelming, hear this year words of invitation from the Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, who is the Provost of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow (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.
from What’s in Kelvin’s Head, February 13, 2021