Temple Cloud

Through fasting, prayer and acts of service you bring us back to your generous heart.    Well, prayer yes, acts of service certainly, but how exactly is fasting supposed to help us appreciate God’s generosity?   Yes, it’s a time when we remember Jesus fasting in the wilderness, but we don’t commemorate Jesus’s death by hanging ourselves on Good Friday.   If it comes to that, why did Jesus fast for forty days, and is this really a good example to imitate? Many people decide to give up something – such as chocolate, social media or alcohol – for Lent, though as this article  points out, people claiming on Twitter to be giving up Twitter probably aren’t being exactly serious. In past centuries, Christians used to practise more severe self-denial in Lent, giving up meat, eggs and dairy (hence the tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday to use up leftover milk, eggs and lard).   Admittedly, this was only partly because of religious reasons and partly because, when last year’s s

Once again, we’re back in Lent.   The English name simply comes from the Anglo-Saxon lencten , meaning ‘spring season’, when the days start to lengthen.   To Christians, however, Lent is the penitential season before Easter. But what does ‘penitential’ mean?   Is it a time to punish ourselves for our sins, trying to appease God by going without chocolate, or going vegan, or even intermittently going without food at all? Well, there can be good reasons for eating less, but self-punishment isn’t one of them.   After all, the point of Christianity, and particularly of Easter, is that we are reconciled to God because Jesus has already atoned for us.   We don’t need to make ourselves suffer in this life in order to deter God from making us suffer more. Alternatively, is this a time to be aware of our sins, repent of them and ask God for forgiveness?   Maybe this is part of what Lent is for.   But is devoting seven weeks of each year to feeling guilty what God wants? My religious upb