The Church has used Lent as a time of penitence and preparation for Easter for more than 1,700 years. In more ancient times, it was also a period of intense preparation for those new believers who would be received into the church on Easter Day.

How are you preparing for Lent this year? This is something to pray about, and offer to God. God may lead you to take something up, lay something down, or to intensify an existing practice. Here’s a list of things that could be ways of preparing to celebrate Easter:

• The Journey Inward
  • Spend time in solitude each day.
  • Say Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer or Compline each day.
  • Investigate Christian Meditation, Centering Prayer, Praying with Icons, the Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina or daily Bible reading.
  • Talk to your spiritual director, or find a spiritual director.
  • Read a book for inner growth.
  • Read twice through the Gospel of Luke.
  • Begin to keep a journal of prayer concerns, questions, reading.
  • Focus on thanksgiving, rather than on asking, in prayer.
  • Give myself a gift of three hours to do something I always say I don’t have time to do.
  • Find a way to go to bed earlier or sleep in so I get enough rest.
  • Make a list of people with whom I need to be reconciled. Pray for them and let Jesus guide me in my thinking and feeling toward them.
  • Take control of my life by ______________.
  • Go to all of the Holy Week services as an act of love and waiting with Jesus.
  • Take one hour to inventory my priorities and plan how I will reorder them.
  • Give up a grudge or a rehearsal of a past event.
  • Forgive someone who has hurt me.
  • Dance my prayers to a favorite tape or CD.
  • Use a daily or weekly Lenten reflection.
• The Journey Outward
  • Take on some loving task:
  • Plan to visit a “shut-in” neighbor or church member weekly.
  • Write a letter of affirmation once a week to a person who has touched my life.
  • Listen and respond to Christ’s call to a ministry of service:
  • Go to coffee or dinner with someone I want to know better.
  • Begin to recycle waste from my home and workplace.
  • Give blood and recall the cross.
  • Say “NO” to something that is a waste of money and time.
  • Pray to God to help me resist prejudice and to give me courage in opposing it.
  • Rebuke the spirit of criticism and my own tongue out of control.
  • Find a way to live out the baptismal promise to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression” in the power and liberty God gives us by ___________________

It can be useful to make a formal commitment to whatever you decide to do. Write it down. Tell a Christian friend, your minister, or perhaps your spiritual director.

If you, or your parish, hasn’t already suggested a resource, the following are things you might find valuable. While we’re not endorsing or recommending any one in particular, the providers are known to us as reputable ones who provide good quality material.

• Anglican Diocese of Ballarat – printable daily book
• Anglican Diocese of Melbourne (scroll down a little to find Lenten resources) – printable daily and weekly books