Kindness and quiet time this Lent

|PIC1|This Lent, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York are encouraging families to share in simple acts of kindness together, while Methodists and celebrity chef Delia Smith are opting for stillness and quiet time.

The Church of England’s Love Life Live Lent programme promotes the idea that doing a good turn for friends, neighbours or the wider community can be just as transforming and spiritually beneficial as ‘giving something up’ for Lent.

Some of the acts of kindness suggested in the campaign include encouraging Christians to donate their unwanted clothes and toys to charity shops, to ditch flashy Mother’s Day presents in favour of simple home-made gifts, and to create a prayer space in the understairs cupboard.

“With God’s help we can change the world for good a little bit every day. Together we can build better and more generous communities. Together we can lighten the load on our planet. We show God’s love when we do these things,” the Archbishops say.

Two pocket-sized booklets have been published this year with tips on how children, young people and adults can complete a Lent’s worth of actions as a family. The actions focus on the home and family; the community; school, college or the workplace; global actions; and actions encouraging prayer and stillness.

The Methodist Church’s Lent campaign encourages people to make simple changes that can help them get more out of their lives. It was launched together with the results of a Church poll which found that most young people would like more hours in the day to get through everything on their to-do list.

|PIC1|The ‘Still Time’ campaign offers people daily email reflections and challenges, and each day of the week has a different focus – ‘time for you’, ‘time for others’, ‘time for God’, ‘time to share’ and ‘time to act’.

“Some of us would love to have more hours in the day, but it’s amazing the difference that we can make in just five minutes. Still Time is about using our time wisely in order to enhance every area of life,” said the Rev Dr Mark Wakelin, one of the contributors to the resource material.

“Still Time is a challenge to all who have given up, feel rushed off their feet, or think it’s simply too late to do things differently. Still Time is about making time that gives us ‘eternity in our hearts’. There’s still time for others, for ourselves, for God – still time to make a difference in the world and begin to discover the people we were always meant to be.”

Delia Smith is offering her daily Scriptural readings for Lent with a similar purpose in mind. Her thoughts on faith are available every day throughout Lent on the CAFOD website. The cookbook writer says she spends one hour a day in silence seeking “union with God” and hopes her readings will help others to do the same.

“Throughout the gospels Jesus spends time alone, away from the pressures of life to be ‘with’ his Father. How can any of his followers not understand their own need for this, faced with the challenges of life today?” says Delia on the CAFOD website. “If Jesus has said, ‘there’s only one thing needed’, we cannot grow as Christians without incorporating that ‘one thing’ into our daily lives and take his words utterly seriously.”

And if you can’t get to the Holy Land this Lent, then you may want to consider going on a virtual pilgrimage thanks to Christian Aid’s new online resource, ‘Journey to Jerusalem’.

The online pilgrimage gives people the chance to watch short videos, photo galleries, read stories and pray in the places where Jesus preached. They also meet local Christians, Jews and Muslims living there today, hear their personal stories and hear how the conflict touches the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, and learn how hard many people are working for peace.

The Rev Richard Mortimer, the United Reformed Church General Secretary, said: “The Holy Land is treasured by three great world faiths. All three religions seek peace and the common good. The virtual pilgrimage can help us connect with the story of the Land in order to help that process.”