Patrick Comerford
Lent begins today with Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), which is being marked in this parish today with the imposition of ashes and the Eucharist or Holy Communion in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this morning (10:30) in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this evening (6 pm).
I m going to miss both as later today two of us set off on an epic journey to Kuching, with a flight from Heathrow that leaves this evening and arrives in Muscat early tomorrow morning local time (07:15), but still the middle of the night back in England (03:15). We have barely breathing time to connect with the next flight from Muscat (09:20) to Kuala Lumpur, and a similar short gap there tomorrow tonight, before our connecting flight, hopefully getting to Kuching after midnight and in the very early hours of Friday (20 February).
But before my day begins, before packing and making sure I have all my papers, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
16 ‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’
Today’s Reflections:
It is striking how often in the Bible encounters with God take place on a mountain top: Mount Sinai, Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, Calvary and the Ascension from the Mount called Olivet.
In the Gospel reading on Sunday (Matthew 17: 1-9, 15 February 2026), we heard the story of the Transfiguration, where Christ is presented on a high mountain as the Father’s beloved Son, and placed on either side of him are Moses and Elijah – for Christ is truly the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets, of all of God’s promises.
In the Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday, we meet Christ as we listen to his Sermon on the Mount.
And there is a link between this mountain-side sermon and the Transfiguration.
The Transfiguration presents an opportunity not only for us to Christ as he truly is – the incarnate, living God; but also an opportunity for us to be reminded of how God sees us – made in his image and likeness.
The first reading the previous Sunday (Genesis 1: 1 to 2: 3), which I read at the Parish Eucharist in Stony Stratford on the Sunday before Lent (8 February 2025), is a reminder that when God made us, God made us from the earth, but also that God made us in God’s own image and likeness. What a compliment.
Then, at Christmas, God takes on our image and likeness. God in Christ does not just look like us, Christ is truly one of us, both God and flesh. Again, what a compliment.
On Calvary, Christ shows he is truly flesh. It is not that he appears to die. He dies. He truly is like us, is one of us. Again, what a compliment.
In the Resurrection, we are called to be what we are truly made to be – to be restored so that once again we are in God’s image and likeness. And once again, what a compliment.
So Lent is an opportunity to look back on who we are, and to look forward to who we are truly called to be: made in God’s image and likeness, and restored to God’s image and likeness.
One way of reminding us of this is to read this Gospel reading reminding us to pray, fast, to do good, to give alms, to seek our rewards in pursuing the values of the Kingdom of God.
This Gospel reading can be understood when it is read within the context of the full Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes.
To be like Christ is to what he asks us to do.
A second way of reminding us of how we are made in God’s image and likeness, and how we are to be restored to God’s image and likeness, is the tradition of using ashes on Ash Wednesday.
It is a Biblical paradox that we are both made from the earth and yet are made in God’s image and likeness. We are made from the soil, yet in Saint John’s understanding of the cosmos all creation also dwells within God’s womb.
Our ashes on Ash Wednesday call us back to our beginnings, so that we can look forward to our glory in the Risen Christ at Easter. We are made of the earth, yet we are made in God’s image and likeness.
Quite often, we mark Lent with traditional customs such as giving up things, donating to charity, deliberate attitudes of kindness, or taking part in parish Bible studies. These customs are like New Year’s resolutions: they make us feel good for as long as we keep them, but they make us feel guilty when we fall behind.
But Lent is not about either: about feeling guilty or about feeling better … even if it is a good idea that I should become less self-centred and it is a good for me if, after a few weeks, I feel fitter and healthier.
In Old English, the word ‘Lent’ has the same meaning as ‘Spring.’ It means the days are lengthening – hence ‘Lent’ – and that signs of life are beginning to emerge after the coldness of winter.
As Spring prepares us to look forward to days that are longer and are warmer, so, Lent as a season prepares us to look forward to Easter: to the conquest of death and to new life through the Resurrection of Christ.
In the early Church, Easter was the time to receive new members of the Church in Baptism, the gift of new life in Christ. Baptism was, and is, a second birth, a way of being made one with Christ and one in the great company of believers who are his body, the Church on earth and in heaven.
Before Baptism, the early Church had a careful period of preparation for all new members. This was a period of instruction in Christian faith and practice, leading to Baptism on Easter Eve.
New Christians were taught to turn their back on old ways, superstitions and idolatries, and to replace them in Lent with acts such as generosity to the poor, the sick and those in prison. As their Baptism and Easter approached, they practised fasting, almsgiving and prayer, supported and encouraged by members of the Church. It was a communal exercise and experience.
And so began the customs and traditions we associate with the season of Lent. They were seen as an imitation of Christ during his 40 days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness after his baptism by Saint John the Baptist.
The traditional Ash Wednesday invitation or exhortation begins:
‘Brothers and sisters in Christ: since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord's passion and resurrection. It became the custom of the Church to prepare for this by a season of penitence and fasting.
‘At first this season of Lent was observed by those who were preparing for baptism at Easter and by those who were to be restored to the Church’s fellowship from which they had been separated through sin. In course of time the Church came to recognize that, by a careful keeping of these days, all Christians might take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and in devotion to our Lord.
‘I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Lord to observe a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.’
There are some ways I could suggest for observing Lent this year:
1, Come and See, Discovering Jesus through the Eucharist, is a free online invitation in the Diocese of Oxford to explore spirituality and find out more about the Christian faith. People are invited receive daily emails through Lent, with reflections, readings and encouragements. Each Sunday, there is a video from Bishop Steven Croft unpacking another aspect of the Eucharist. More information here.
2, My reading for Lent this year is Dancing to the Heartbeat of God, Stories of Discipleship, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2026, with a foreword by Archbishop Sarah Mullally and an introduction by Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York. This book brings together around 30 contributors from across the globe, who reflect the breadth, diversity and vitality of the Anglican Communion, and who offer a confident and hopeful vision of faith lived out in everyday life through personal stories, testimonies and reflections on what it means to follow Christ faithfully.
3, USPG’s Lent Appeal this year seeks to bring hope for the future to Myanmar. Through the Church of the Province of Myanmar’s Integrated Education Programme, vulnerable children are finding sanctuary in classrooms, sustenance in daily meals, and strength in community. USPG is supporting this partnership of faith and action throughout Lent 2026. Find out more and support the appeal here.
4, Pope Leo XIV, in his invitation for Lent this year, says: ‘I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbour. Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander and speaking ill of those who are not present and cannot defend themselves.’ This is a wonderful way to start Lent, and a wonderful way roo to show we are listening to what Christ asks of us.
There is a necessary rigour to Lent. It is meant to offer a time for change to take place.
Fasting also allows us to learn the extraordinary richness of God’s creation: we can appreciate it more if we seek to tame our appetites for a while. Put this alongside prayer and almsgiving and we cannot but help to turn away from self a little more and so have space for God and the claims of God and neighbour on our lives. Over the past four years, I have been in and out of hospitals and clinics in Milton Keynes, Oxford, Sheffield and London, for tests related to a battery of conditions and injuries falling a fall. I did not need to read today’s Gospel to be reminded ‘whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.’
Spring follows winter and holds the promise of summer; Lent holds the hope of Easter and the Resurrection. And the next six weeks of Lent offer a fresh opportunity to do those things, and to pray in those ways, that make us less self-centred, that make us feel fitter and healthier – spiritually as well as physically – and that renew and refresh our faith, our hope, our love.
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 18 February 2026, Ash Wednesday):
The theme this week (15-21 February 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Look to the Amazon!’ (pp 28-29). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Bishop of Amazonia and Archbishop of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 18 February 2026, Ash Wednesday) invites us to pray:
Merciful God, as we begin this season of Lent, remind us to seek your presence with humble hearts. Teach us to give, to pray, and to fast however we can out of love of you. May we walk each day in the light of your grace.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
you have given your only Son to be for us
both a sacrifice for sin
and also an example of godly life:
give us grace
that we may always most thankfully receive
these his inestimable gifts,
and also daily endeavour
to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Holy God,
our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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