| Author | Message | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1499 Registered: 11-2002 |
Do any of you others io this forum discussion partisipate in Lent? If so, would you please share your traditions or customs for Lent. At the church I attend we have a weekly Lent vespers each Wednesday. We meet in the social hall for a simple meal of soup, bread, salad and water. On each table is a basket for a freewill offering. The Lent donations are put in a seperate fund that is used to assist the people who are regular worshipers at the church with unforseen emergency expences. This is the fund that the church used to pay for me to get a new windshield when the local window basher came by and threw a cement block through my windshield. I have heard this money has been used to help people get airfare to family members in a great state of crisis asd well as things like new tires. Then after the supper we have a 45 minute vespers. It is always on a Bibical passage that causes much contimplation and reflection in our continuing Christian walk. Did any of you others go to Ash Wednesday services? Did any of you others partake in the imposition of the ashes? I am courious. Thank-you for sharing. | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1048 Registered: 3-2004  |
Just being one year out of Adventism, will you explain to me what Lent,Ash Wednesday, imposition of ashes is all about? Thanks Diana | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1400 Registered: 12-2003  |
Susan, Lent, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, etc. are liturgical holidays that are not generally formally observed in non-liturgical churches. They are traditions added after the early apostolic times, and during the medieval period, when most of Europe was composed of uneducated, poor serfs, and when Bibles were not available to the public, the church holidays served a particularly useful function in that they gave the serfs holidays--"holy days"--on which they did not have to work a full day in the fields. They went to church and, depending upon the holiday, also might have had a celebratory meal. They marked the passage of the year for people as well. During that period (hundreds of years, actually--in fact, more than a millennium) the church holy days functioned a bit like a calendar. Further, the cathedrals were the center of each town's social life. Secular travelling minstrels, jugglers, etc. would stop and perform on the stairs in front of the cathedrals to assembled crowds. Life in those days revolved around the church, and for its part, the church enjoyed great control of the people. (Possessing the town's only Bible(s) was distinct power; the priests were the only ones who could tell people what the Bible said.) Non-liturgical churches do not generally celebrate Lent and Ash Wednesday. I think the services can be very meaningful and contemplative, but I believe many of those services were jettisoned in the wake of the Reformation. The year we decided to leave Adventism, I went with a friend of mine, also former SDA who had become Episcopalian, to an Ash Wednesday services at her church. It was a remarkable experience because I participated in the whole thing--including communion--with the tangible awareness that I was FREE to celebrate this litrugical service! As an Adventist, I had thought it was possibly a sin to take communion at a Catholic or Episcopalian church. It was very moving to take commuion and to have the priest make the sign of the cross on my forehead with ashes on his thumb. I haven't attended an Ash Wednesday service(the Wednesday before Easter) since then , and I've never observed Lent (the 40 days before Easter), but that service stands out in my mind as a symbol of my new-found freedom in Christ. Colleen | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1500 Registered: 11-2002 |
Lent in Christianity is the 40 days prior to Easter, excluding Sundays because every Sunday is an Easter Sunday. The history has it at 40 days as several places in the Bible God uses a 40 day time period. The Iasrealites wandered in the desert looking for the promiosed land for 40 years. Jesus went to the mountain and prayed for 40 days. Am I right in thinking that Noah and his family were in the ark for 40 days? The book of Joel is a traditional passage read in the churches at the start of Lent. Joel chapter two. So, in Christianity Lent is a 40 day time of reflection on the sacrafice God has given us. Traditionally Lent has included much fasting along with deep prayer. In ages past most people gave something up as a sacrafice so that they could expeerience going without and spend the money that they saved from whatever their sacrifice was, they then would donate it to the poor. That is where the congreation I attend gets their idea of the baskets on the tables as donation baskets to help the congreation members out with emergenicies. Most people who practice Lent are very intense about their Bible study and prayer during this time. Catholics often will try to make Mass every day. Protestant churches that practice Lent generally have a mid-week Lenten vespers service. Where I go we do it on Wed. because of ackmowledgement to Ash Wed. Now on to Ash Wed. and the Imposition of the Ashes. We go to church on Ash Wed. and the minister/priest makes the sign of the cross on our foreheads just before communion. We use the ash from the palm as it was plam frowns that were waved over Jesus. The cross is just that, a rememberance of the sacrafice Jesus did for us on the cross and on our foreheads is because of the indwelling Holy Spirit in our hearts, minds and bodys. It is a solom ritual and a solom period of time of contimplation and reflection, great prayer, sacricice and devotion to learning about Jesus and furthering our understanding of His deep and abiding love for us. Lent does not count Sundays. Then we eventually get to Maunday Thursday, which is the Thursday evening before Good Friday. Then at three in the afternoon on Good Friday everyone wears black, the traditional color of mourning and greif and goes to church. There is no benediction after this service because Jesus is now dead. On Sunday morning He has risen and we were pretty clothes to church and it is a festive occassion because Our Saviour has risen, indeed He has. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1405 Registered: 12-2003 |
Oops--big mistake--Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, not the Wed. before Easter! It follows Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. Colleen |
