Grieving During Lent

by April Murrie, Robert Cunningham, Elizabeth O’Donnell

This letter originally appeared in the weekly Good Shepherd newsletter on March 4.

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Friends,

Below is our email with important information and invitations for this Lenten season. Before reading it, we want to begin with a pastoral note about this season as so many in our congregation are grieving:

On Wednesday we will mark foreheads with ash in the sign of the cross and say these words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent. The ash invites us to consider the frailty of our humanity and to honestly confront death, our great enemy. Friends, it can feel hurtful to speak about death, but it is even more hurtful to be silent about it. And so, the Church speaks about death with raw honesty, but also with resurrection hope. For the ash on foreheads is in the sign of the cross and the cross reminds us that Christ has not only tasted death, but also triumphed over it.

We know that many of us are entering this season grieving for our loved ones who have died or are suffering, for our city, nation, and world, and for our own personal suffering. If this is you, we invite you to grieve as your Lenten practice. In “The Holy Longing,” Ronald Rolheiser devotes a chapter to the Paschal Mystery. The Paschal mystery acknowledges that in this life we all suffer numerous little deaths before our terminal death, but in attentively grieving them with Jesus, Jesus walks us through them, mysteriously leading us into new life. Just as Christ will raise us with our resurrected bodies in the fullness of time, even now he invites us to grieve our little deaths as the loss of one kind of life and to be open to receiving a deeper and richer form of life in him. Christ’s death on the cross is the paschal death, not only for him, but also for us. Not only at the end of our lives, but in the little deaths we grieve now.

Below is our Lenten letter with information and logistics for how we hope to approach this season as a congregation. As you read it and consider Christ’s invitation to you, consider if you need to let grief companion with you in these practices as a means to bring your grief to Jesus. Additionally, we are compiling resources in a grief library, considering additional grief workshops for our community, and we are always ready to refer to trusted counselors or spiritual directors if you need more support. We, your pastors,  love you and grieve with you.

The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (March 5th, this year) and concludes on Holy Saturday with the Easter vigil (April 19). During Lent our sanctuary linens will be purple and the liturgy will be more penitential. Along those lines, we will invite everyone to receive the Eucharist at the kneeling rail. It is a common posture and practice among many Anglican churches to receive the eucharist while kneeling, but we want to particularly embrace this posture in the season of Lent as an invitation into a posture of humility, embodying our reliance upon God’s mercy.  

We also want to invite you to consider engaging in three practices personally and communally. Christ’s words in Matthew 6 - “when you pray… when you give… when you fast...”  establish the practices of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting which have long been held as the traditional practices of Lent. Within each of these practices are invitations to discern what things may be hindering our relationship or connection with God (prayer), others (alms), and ourselves (fasting).  

FASTING
We want to invite households to engage in a practice of simplicity/fasting for one meal a week. This could mean eating a simple meal or fasting from a meal as appropriate (considering your story, stage of life, relationship with your body and food). Fasting is always about creating space - space to pray, listen, and attend. If you are a household with children please talk to your children ahead of time about how you will be eating a simple meal and why. 

ALMSGIVING
We would encourage you to give to our mercy fund or another cause you trust.

PRAYER
Fasting or eating simply creates hunger and cravings in our bodies; it reminds us that we do not depend on food alone but on the very word of God. As we feel these cravings emerge we can receive them as promptings to prayer and we offer two corporate invitations this season: 

1. If you would like to receive prayer during this season, please fill out this form so that others in our parish can hold you in prayer during this season. 

2. Join us for morning prayer at the church on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the sanctuary from 8:00 am to 8:30 am. We will also offer a 30 minute midday (noon) Eucharist services on Wednesdays during Lent beginning on March 12. 

These disciplines may be unfamiliar to many of us. Please remember they are practices to connect you to God, not practices for perfectionism. Practice them as you can, not as you cannot. And practice them together as a church community. Consider asking someone else to join you for a simple meal and time of prayer. Please remember this helpful guidance this season in regards to kneeling at the rail and each of these practices: “All may, some should, none must.” 

Please take time to pray and discern what Jesus is inviting you towards this Lenten season. Jesus loves to accompany us on our journey to know God more and he is a faithful guide through grief. And, please reach out to any one of us if we can support you this season. 

Robert, April, and Elizabeth

The Rev. Robert Cunningham is Rector, The Rev. April Murrie is Associate Rector, and Elizabeth O’Donell is Spiritual Formation Resident of Church of the Good Shepherd in Charlottesville, VA.