From the Rector - February 2026

Ash Wednesday falls on the 18th of February this year, and marks the beginning of the Christian season of Lent. After the death and resurrection of Jesus the first Christians prepared for Easter with no more than a few days of fasting, but by the year 325AD the observance of Lent as a penitential period of forty days was well established. The choice of forty days followed the examples of Moses, Elijah and of course Jesus himself in fasting for that period. For those of us today who enjoy deliveries from Sainsbury’s or frequent visits to the Coop, the idea of spending six weeks deliberately ‘going without’ seems hard to comprehend. In the first few hundred years the fast was very strict, often with only one meal a day being eaten, and all meat, fish and dairy disallowed. In Europe, this strictness was relaxed after the 8th century, when fish and dairy products were gradually permitted, but even in the 15th Century it was expected that nothing would be eaten until noon. At the start of Europe’s Reformation, the Reformers publicly rejected the fasting which the church required, and some let it be known that they ate sausages in Lent as an act of defiance. Thereafter the people of Europe were divided about fasting (and much else) for several centuries. In the Church of England any kind of fasting is entirely optional, and in 1966 the Roman Catholic Church ruled that strict fasting was only required on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Christians have ‘observed’ Lent in different ways, but all Christians agree that outward devotions are only symbols of the desire to be in a spiritual state of humility and openness for the celebration of Easter.

Times have changed, and old religious practices and customs are no longer widely followed here. Yet we are as aware as ever that Easter is about God’s grace, and the gift of abundant and eternal life in Jesus, the Saviour. So how might we appropriately prepare to remember this today? In our time, few people fast for religious reasons, but what, I wonder, can we each do to prepare our hearts and lives to be receptive to the message of life, to spiritual grace at Easter? I suspect there are many options, and perhaps the best will involve acts of kindness or generosity to others, because unless we can be truly generous to one another, it will be hard for us to accept that God’s gift of abundant life in Jesus Christ has been given to us so freely.

Revd Ralph Williamson - Rector