In honour of it being the last week of Lent, I decided to explore a classic lenten practice this week, fasting. There are many different approaches to fasting, from total abstinence from food on certain days, as is common in some evangelical circles, to the giving up of a favorite food during the season, which … Continue reading Fasting
One of the most striking features of the theologies that emerged from the Reformation was their sharp division between faith and works, grace and law, New Covenant and Old Covenant. This is certainly not without justification. The New Testament writings burst with joy and expectation that all things are being made new with the coming … Continue reading Commandments of Grace
This week was the first full week of Lent, and so I wanted the practice for this week to be a specifically Lenten practice. And, since I first encountered it twelve years ago, no practice has jumped out at me as being ‘more’ Lenten, than the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian. The famed … Continue reading Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian
[Originally posted two years ago on my old blog] Those of you who know me undoubtedly know my deeply ambivalent feelings about Lent, or more accurately, about how Lent tends to be celebrated. Too often this season of penitence is defined by external things, like the lack of flowers on the altar, or depriving oneself … Continue reading A Bright Lent
At the start of this season of penitence we remind ourselves of our smallness and impermanence. Over and against the ego's instinct to puff itself up in the face of these simple realities of existence — like a house cat arching its back and raising its fur at the sight of its reflection in a mirror — we instead lean into our smallness and impermanence and remember that we are crafted and sustained by the love of an infinitely creative God.
Matthew Root 