February 6: Ash Wednesday

On Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we enter Lent. If you need help in determining what you can do to give shape to your Lenten discipline this year, visit Connecting Worship and Daily Living in Lent or Spirit Home, where you can find suggestions.

Our Daily Office community has decided to read and discuss Frederica Mathewes-Green's First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey through the Ancient Great Canon. Here's what she says about her book:

Researching this book immersed me in the Scriptures as no other Christian prayer-text has. I was in awe of the profundity of St. Andrew of Crete's meditation on the biblical text, and the resonances he uncovered in it from one end to the other. It's further astounding that he wrote this around 720 A.D., when there were no study helps available like today's concordances, indexes, and marginal references. Through frequent daily worship, he really had consumed the Bible, and assimilated it. Yet the Canon does not come off as a dry, theological tour-de-force. It breathes with his yearning to be wholly transformed by the light of Jesus Christ, and his courageous desire to root out whatever in him resists that light. St. Andrew's knowledge of the Scriptures, his unflinching examination of himself, and above all his radiant love for Jesus Christ make this a perfect book for study during Lent.

I've ordered ten copies; they should arrive before Ash Wednesday, and I'll bring them to St. Thomas Lutheran Church to give out before or after the Ash Wednesday service. See the January 29th posting for more information!

I'll also have copies to give out on Thursday, when our Daily Office community meets again this

week.

We will be discussing Frederica Mathewes-Green's book on this blog. If you'd like to enter comments and reflections, please do so.