Words of Light and Hope from Tony Hawes

Words of Light and Hope from Tony Hawes.

Lent is often called a journey.
That means, that at the end of Lent we should expect to find ourselves somewhere different from where we started.
Our destination is Easter, promised land and homeland.

Peter Mazar – A Lent Sourcebook.

When 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. And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Matthew 6.6-8.

You wish to fast, to go without, to give?
Then give up what is yours, your money, if you
will, your time, your self, but most of all,
your love……
You wish to know me?
Look around to seek and find me in each one
that you meet.
Especially the at-first-sight unattractive ones,
the private, quiet, inward-looking melancholic,
the grumpy and the hard to please – each one has
reasons to be sad, that justify their hard, protective
shells, which only yield to smiles and smiles and
smiles, empathy and prayer……
In knowing them you know me.
In loving them you feel your love for me.
This is the fast that touches me –
that I desire.

Francis Buxton – A Lenten Fast.

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51.10.

Good Lord, purify our priorities this Lent
as we pursue that clean heart and right spirit.
As we live under the dazzling gaze of your love,
help us to return that gaze with joy, and so be
drawn into the generous flow of your grace
forever pouring out into the world.
This Lent, may our hearts be re-fixed on you,
O God, and on following the way of your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.