St Johns with St Barnabas

What is the season of Lent all about?

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The church’s year sees an important season begin in March and continuing all the way through to Holy Week in the middle of April. The ‘colours’ in church change to purple and our focus becomes more penitential in its ethos. Lent is later this year and begins on Ash Wednesday when we will be holding a Benefice-wide service at 7.00pm at St. Saviours on Wednesday 5th March. If you have recovered from the festivities of Shrove Tuesday, the night before at Holdenhurst Village Hall, do come and join us!

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Lent is an opportunity for Christians to reflect upon their lives, repent of their wrongdoing and turn in a new direction as they seek to follow God in a faithful and disciplined pattern of life. Over the years, during Lent Christians have taken on several different new disciplines e.g. read more of the Bible or a Christian book, spend more time in quiet with God, or give up a particular treat like chocolate or alcohol and contribute the money to a charity.

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More Prayer during Lent and beyond!

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In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he encourages Christians to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (I Thessalonians 5 v 1-18), and in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, Christians are reminded in his prayer that God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or even imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). This year has been declared a Jubilee by the Pope and a ‘Year of Hope’ following a year of prayer.

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Why don’t we take up that call ourselves and make 2025 a year of both “Hope and Prayer” by committing ourselves to praying more throughout Lent, and in the rest of the year