Lent helps us enter the deepest and most  important mysteries  of  what  it  truly means  to  be  human—spirit and  flesh  fused  together.  Ash Wednesday is the beginning  of  Lent.  Ashes  remind us  of  our  mortality.  The  ashes  which  are blessed and  traced in the form of a cross on our  forehead come  from the palms of a previous Palm  Sunday,  also  reminding  us  that the  very praises of Hosanna which we sang turn to dust when we deny Our Lord through sin. Lent is a time of self denial. As  traditional Anglicans we need to understand three things about Lent: fasting, abstinence, and discipline.

Fasting

Fasting is not refraining from all food. Fasting is eating no more than a light breakfast, one full meal (no dessert, of course), and one half meal.

Abstinence

Simply  put,  abstinence  is  abstaining from  flesh  meat.    “Flesh  meat”  here  does include chicken, by the way.  In other words, Lent may not be the best of times to start the Atkins diet!

When and How? 

Over-fasting to the point of endangering your heath defeats  the purpose of  the  spiritual  exercise. The  very  young, the very old, and the  infirm are customarily not expected to fast.  When in doubt one should  always consult one’s priest.

Discipline

We often hear about “giving  something up” for Lent.  Giving up something is not the sole extent  of Lenten discipline, however. Our discipline ought to be a fine-tuning of our individual Rules of Life: our personal prayer, corporate prayer, devotion, spiritual reading and study, and the corporal acts  of mercy.  That doesn’t mean that “giving up” is bad; on the contrary, we probably ought to give up much more than we do! Skeptics and modernists love to talk about “taking something on”  instead of giving up something.  As I’ve said from the pulpit, that is the voice of the devil!  He doesn’t want us to give up anything!  In reality, one ought to do both--both give up something and then fill the gap of giving up with prayer, studying, visiting the sick, giving to the poor, shopping for or driving a shut-in.  Take something on for Christ this Lent. I'm sure if you look around your parish church you’ll  find excellent ways to work on building up your spiritual muscles: Stations of the Cross on Fridays, extra weekday Masses, and so on.

Conclusion

The rules we set for ourselves for Lent should help make us  better  Christians.  Lent should  bring  us  closer  to  God,  each  other, and His creation.  Let us all focus on the real work of the Church.  On Ash Wednesday let us all vow to offer prayers, as well as to reach out to  our community that we may become Christ to a hurting world. Our baptism has made us members of his Body.  We are his ears to listen to the  dejected and hopeless; we are his voice which speaks words of kindness.  It is time to take up our cross and “offer our selves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and living  sacrifice.”  Let us journey together, through the cross, to the light.