Lent: Returning to Center
Lent is a season of return. A return to center. A return to truth. A return to God Almighty. For forty days the Church steps out of noise and urgency and into holy recalibration. We slow our speech, examine our habits, and open the hidden rooms of the heart to mercy and repair.
This is not a season for arrogance, harshness, or self-display. It is a season that calls us away from being boastful or cutting, and calls us toward gentleness, honesty, and reconciliation. We are invited to help one another, to bear burdens together, and to love as Jesus loved and continues to love through the living Church, the Body of Christ still breathing in the world.
Our worship during Lent reflects this inward turning. The music and liturgy are carefully and prayerfully planned to support humility and reflection.
• The word Alleluia is set aside until Easter, like a bright banner folded and waiting.
• All services conclude without postlude so we may leave in silence and contemplation.
• Psalms are offered in chant, allowing the ancient prayer of the Church to carry us.
• The musical liturgy is somber, spacious, and grounded.
• Certain hymns speak plainly about who we are, how we fail, and how we sometimes wound one another, because healing begins with truth.
• During Lent II through IV, the Communion anthem All Glory Is Yours reminds us to bow low in spirit, to become small before divine mercy, and to remember that all honor belongs to God.
Lent does not shrink the soul. It clears it. It teaches us to stand without pretense, to kneel without fear, and to rise renewed. Come walk the path with us, quietly, faithfully, together.
George Ackerman-Behr, Music Minister
Lent is a season of return. A return to center. A return to truth. A return to God Almighty. For forty days the Church steps out of noise and urgency and into holy recalibration. We slow our speech, examine our habits, and open the hidden rooms of the heart to mercy and repair.
This is not a season for arrogance, harshness, or self-display. It is a season that calls us away from being boastful or cutting, and calls us toward gentleness, honesty, and reconciliation. We are invited to help one another, to bear burdens together, and to love as Jesus loved and continues to love through the living Church, the Body of Christ still breathing in the world.
Our worship during Lent reflects this inward turning. The music and liturgy are carefully and prayerfully planned to support humility and reflection.
• The word Alleluia is set aside until Easter, like a bright banner folded and waiting.
• All services conclude without postlude so we may leave in silence and contemplation.
• Psalms are offered in chant, allowing the ancient prayer of the Church to carry us.
• The musical liturgy is somber, spacious, and grounded.
• Certain hymns speak plainly about who we are, how we fail, and how we sometimes wound one another, because healing begins with truth.
• During Lent II through IV, the Communion anthem All Glory Is Yours reminds us to bow low in spirit, to become small before divine mercy, and to remember that all honor belongs to God.
Lent does not shrink the soul. It clears it. It teaches us to stand without pretense, to kneel without fear, and to rise renewed. Come walk the path with us, quietly, faithfully, together.
George Ackerman-Behr, Music Minister
