Patrick Comerford
We are at Heathrow Airport at the beginning of a lengthy odyssey that begins this evening, arriving in Muscat early tomorrow, and continuing on through Kuala Lumpur, expecting to arrive in Kuching shortly after midnight tomorrow or in the very early hours of Friday morning.
Lent, which began today (Ash Wednesday, 18 February 2026), is a spiritual journey that leads us to the pains of the Crucifixion on Good Friday and the hope and joy of the Resurrection on Easter morning.
In previous years, my morning Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, reflected in the music of Vaughan Williams or the writings of Samuel Johnson, and similar themes.
I was writing yesterday about Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), and how my photograph of his bust recently restored in Bird Street, Lichfield, by the local historian and tour guide Jonathan Oates, has been used by Jono in his design of a new lapel badge or pin as a fundraiser for the Johnson Birthplace Museum.
The Lichfield lexicographer and writer compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary. Perhaps I am sympathetic to Johnson because of his origins in Lichfield. Perhaps I am drawn to him because he recalled that when he lived in in London he went ‘every day to a coffee-house.’ But he was also a pious Anglican, a regular communicant, and he wrote regularly and carefully about his observance of Lent and Easter.
At an early age, his mother encouraged Johnson to learn the Book of Common Prayer by heart, including its many rich collects in Lent. The Book of Common Prayer invites us ‘to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and Repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.’
Johnson once declared, through his amanuensis James Boswell, that unless we set aside certain days for particular remembrances, we will probably fail to remember.
Johnson was generally negative about religious verse and his own devotional poems, marked by earnestness and humility, were composed mainly in his later years. There are several meditations and seven Latin prayers, the majority of them based on the Collects in The Book of Common Prayer.
David Nichol Smith, in Samuel Johnson’s Poems, says these verses ‘are preserved for us in sufficient numbers to rank [Johnson] as a religious poet, though a minor one.’
The Collect of Ash Wednesday in its traditional version in The Book of Common Prayer prays:
‘Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; Create and make in us new hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
Johnson translates this into Latin as:
Summe Deus, qui semper amas quodcunque creasti,
Judice quo scelerum est poenituisse salus,
Da veteres noxas animo sic flere novato,
Per Christum ut veniam sit reperire mihi.
His translation, written 245 years ago, is dated 13 April 1781 and was first published in Works in 1787 (see Poems, pp 229-230).
Translated back into English, this reads:
Almighty God, who dost always love what thou hast made,
before whom as judge to have repented of one’s sins is salvation,
grant that with my soul made new I may so lament my former sins
as to be able to obtain forgiveness through Christ.
Johnson condensed the original without losing very much and made it a personal prayer. But his emphasis is a positive one, so that he begins with an affirmation of God’s love rather than asserting that God does not hate.
It is a twist in emphasis that reveals much about Johnson’s piety and his confidence in the love of God. And it is an emphasis worth reflecting on as we begin Lent and as we set off on this lengthy, marathon journey.
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