Lent is a kind of sabbatical: a break amid the usual routines of our lives, over the forty-day period from Ash Wednesday until Easter.  On the Sabbath, in the Jewish tradition, the prohibition from work is more precisely a break from doing things that interfere with Nature’s processes.  According to the Torah, on the Sabbath you can pick up an apple that naturally falls from a tree onto the ground, but you can’t pick it from the tree.  Mindful Christian meditative prayer practice is very similar.  In it, we take time to see things as they are, without interfering with them or trying to fix or change them.  Once we know what is, we can then think and act wisely on what ought to be.

This guide to Lent is based on a theologically progressive form of the ancient Christian practice of Lectio Divina.  Its aim is “contemplatio” – the experience of mystical union with the “I Am” who is God who is the true Self within us all.

This guide can be used by individuals or groups.