Lent 2010 - Keeping the Sabbath

Christ the Healer and St. Francis Church are joining together again this year to to put out a Lenten booklet collecting the spiritual reflections of our members, and the daily reflections will be published to this blog, for your review and comments. We hope this will be a daily spiritual resource. Our theme for Lent this year will be Sabbath-Keeping - which brings up all kinds of issues of rest, recreation, faith, control, obedience, freedom, justice, self-worth, balance... Try this on for size:

"When we keep a Sabbath holy, we are practicing, for a day, the freedom that God intends for all people. We are practicing life outside the frantic pace set by financial markets and round-the-clock shopping and entertainment venues. We are practicing independence from the forces of injustice. We are trying on a new way of life as we begin to allow our weeks to be changed in response to God's promises. We are practicing - pun intended. Like a novice learning to play a musical instrument, we may be off-key at times. It may be years before we are in harmony, and we will never get it perfect. But that need not stop us. Besides, stopping is less a problem than getting started." (Dorothy Bass, Receiving the Day)

We will have a focus for each of the weeks in Lent:

Week 1: Slowing Down - Recovering Time as a Gift
Week 2: What Happens When Everything Stops?
Week 3: God, Sabbath and the Bible
Week 4: Doing/Being;Giving/Receiving (Sabbath Obstacles)
Week 5: Being Still: Cultivating Attentiveness
Holy Week: Lectionary readings for each day

Stay tuned for our daily posts, and please offer your own reflections and comments!