Pastor’s Perspective

Welcome to Lent. Got plans for, say, the next forty days? Lent is a thoughtful, prayerful, meditative time so here are a few quotes regarding Lent for you to consider. First, from convicted Watergate cover-upper, Charles Colson who had a born-again conversion in jail:

"Lent affords us the opportunity to search the depths of our sin and experience the heights of God’s love."

 Here's one from Pope Francis:

"Fasting makes sense if it really chips away at our security and, as a consequence, benefits someone else, if it helps us cultivate the style of the good Samaritan, who bent down to his brother in need and took care of him."

 This one is from the ancient church father John Chrysostom:

"No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”

C.S. Lewis wrote:

"Because Nature, and especially human nature, is fallen it must be corrected and the evil within it must be mortified."

 Finally, this from Augustine:

"You must certainly beware of just revising, not reducing, your pleasures. You can see some people searching out unusual liquors as a substitute for the usual wine. … The result is that the observance of Lent means, not the repression of old lusts, but the occasion for new enjoyments."

Allen Cross