Big Read 14 - Barefoot Prayers

Rosie Perera said:

Thanks. I just received this too, but I'd forgotten that it was for Lent. I'm surprised it starts at the first Sunday in Lent instead of Ash Wednesday, but I suppose that's OK. Don't most Lenten devotionals start with Ash Wednesday?

In his preamble to the first section 'Gatherings' Stephen Cherry writes... 

This collection begins on the Sunday before Lent. Lent is itself a season of preparation, but even preparation can benefit from preparation. Shrove Tuesday is the focus of this, and can helpfully take the form of a day of clearing out and carnival. It begins on a Sunday, partly to honour the resurrection from the start. After all, every Sunday is a little Easter, and Lent is not about forgetting the resurrection. Far from it: without knowing that Lent is a journey to resurrection, Lent can become a sad and sorry time. And in parallel with that my intention is to let love have the first word. The traditional collect for the Sunday Before Lent focuses on the necessity of charity in the Christian journey, echoing the famous passage in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: without love, ‘I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol’ (1 Corinthians 13:1). The idea is that love provides the prism through which the whole Lenten journey is seen and imagined.

The week that begins Lent is a strange land of awakening. Shrove Tuesday invites us to turn a corner, to gather up the goodies in the larder, toss a pancake, and revel in Mardi Gras, as we expect and await the austerity of Ash Wednesday. There, a smudge on the forehead brings us down to earth. ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.’ That’s enough of a thought. But humble mortality alone is not adequate. Nor is plodding on in the same old way. We are to change, turn, repent: ‘Turn from sin and be faithful to Christ.’ First of all, though, we need to name and pray for the supreme gift: the gift of love.

Seems fair enough to me?