The Falling of Dusk: The 2023 Lent Book

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Meeting God in Matthew explores what the Gospel of Matthew teaches us about the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the gospel message better, it will leave you with a new appreciation of and enthusiasm for the riches of Matthew's writing, and the desire to return to it over and over again. Its straightforward, enlightening approach also makes it eminently helpful for new Christians just starting out on their faith journey.

The Revd Dr Mark Oakley is Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and Canon Theologian of Wakefield Cathedral. The season of Lent traditionally extends for forty weekdays from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter Sunday. Sundays which are regarded as the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection are not included in the 40 days of Lent. I’ve selected a variety of Lent devotional books here reflecting how God speaks to us all in different ways. What we read during Lent is our own choice and an unlimited one. There is a small selection of Lent books here, and I hope that you will find something to inspire your Lenten journey. Lent Books – A Selection of 40 Day Lent Devotionals Dust and Glory is the Church of England's Lent campaign for 2023. Offering 40 daily reflections for Lent on faith, failure and forgiveness, it invites you to find God in the mess of everyday life. The author has selected 10 everyday objects to draw us into Jesus’ teaching to ordinary people. This is not the miraculous healings or the big statements, but the small day-to-day observations and encounters. I found this reflection encouraging and challenging. To develop that attentiveness to see and hear God speak in our routine, mundane tasks is such a blessing! Over the six weeks leading up to Easter Sunday the author structures the book around the themes of silence, contemplation, peace, joy, confidence, and love. Each day focuses on a particular painting, with a short reflection accompanying it. All the different styles and expressions of art are represented, from the classic ‘masters’ to new and contemporary artists.Aimed at those who embrace, reject, or are uncertain about faith, Paul Dominiak invites us to reflect in unconventional ways on our assumptions, anxieties, suspicions and beliefs through a conventional Lenten form of meditation. There are eight weekly projects to cover the period of Lent. Each week uses the Scripture readings taken from the Book of Common Prayer (Year A). The project involves selecting one of the readings for artwork and then journaling your responses to a set of questions. There are further questions for discussion if you are completing the task as part of a small group. During Lent, we are asked to devote ourselves to seeking the Lord in prayer and reading Scripture, to service by giving alms, and to practice self-control through fasting. Dive into God's word in Scripture this Lent or pray the rosary with your family.

For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards. As well as offering her reflections on the various film excerpts, the Bible passages and the themes they explore, Bishop Rose also draws on her own experiences from a childhood growing up in Jamaica without a mother from the age of 2, and from her years of ministry. ‘It is my hope’, writes Bishop Rose, ‘that we will find ourselves at the end of the course more literate and fluent when it comes to expressing our faith, and comfortable and willing, not only to recognise, but to speak about the difference faith is making in our daily living.’ Dust and Glory: A Lent Journey of faith, failure and forgiveness offers a daily Bible reading, a short reflection and a practical challenge, as well as a prayer linked to the week’s theme. Co-written by Bishop Emma Ineson and Abbie Martin, the booklet is designed to be used either in parallel with the Lent Book or independently. There will be free online support for groups studying the book – including in-depth video interviews with the Archbishop of Canterbury and others exploring the themes of each of the chapters. The Room Where It Happens The question “Whose life am I actually living?” is resonant at a time when so many voices are shouting at us from the wings about what we should be doing on stage. Merton’s relentless commitment to seeing beyond what he is good at, to seeing where the mask has eaten into his face, and the destructive ways in which we are made to fit in with expectations, is an important provocation to us.I was particularly helped in this regard by Paul Dominiak’s The Falling of Dusk. His concern is to explore how religious conviction remains possible without certainty, and how faith and doubt necessarily co-exist, avoiding both religious dogmatism and doctrinaire atheism. He converses both with the great doubters of Christianity and with the meaning of Jesus’s final words on the cross, those messages of repair spoken as “darkness covered the earth.” The letters are full of topics that Paul considered important to share while he was still able! The author has drawn out of the letters seven themes to form the chapters of the book and guide our Lenten journey. These include family, unity, spiritual warfare, prayer, living for Jesus, suffering, and concluding at Easter week with He is risen. Each day provides teaching on a topic as part of the theme for that week. This Lent devotional brings fresh insight, and practical application, of foundational truths for Christian living. This series of reflections, written for Lent and Holy Week 2023 by the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, ponders the significance of these words. What does it mean for Jesus to have quoted them, at the very end of his life? What do those words mean for us? The Prison Letters consists of forty daily devotions with each day providing a Scripture reading and concluding with a prayer. At the end of each week, there are Scriptures provided for further reading and some questions to explore. All the readings are taken from Paul’s prison letters, namely, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. These letters were all written by Paul while he was under house arrest in Rome. As in recent years, the weekly themes of the Archbishop’s Lent Book are also explored in daily reflections from the Church of England.

Lent is a 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter. During Lent, we seek the Lord in prayer by reading Sacred Scripture; we serve by giving alms; and we practice self-control through fasting. We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ's will more faithfully. We recall the waters of baptism in which we were also baptized into Christ's death, died to sin and evil, and began new life in Christ.Each chapter begins with an introduction to that week’s theme. Then each day provides a Scripture reading, reflection, a question, and closes with a prayer. Then the section ends with further questions to summarise and clarify the theme.

The book and booklets will be accompanied by daily #DustAndGlory social media posts from Ash Wednesday (22 February) to Easter Day (9 April), together with a wide range of free digital resources for individuals, groups and churches. A Place for Us is an original Lent course based on the recent film production of West Side Story directed by Steven Spielberg and featuring the songs of Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. Through study and discussion of key scenes from the movie, related to Lent passages from scripture, Lavinia Byrne and Jane McBride help us to reflect on fear, love, betrayal, death, and reconciliation. Dust and Glory is the Church of England's 2023 Lent campaign. This booklet for children and families invites us to use Lent as a time to find God in the 'mess' of everyday life. It offers small steps designed to help us on our Lent journey as we try to grow closer to God and to others through life's struggles and disappointments. An accompanying children’s version is also available to help children and their families explore how we can live well together, offering a simple daily activity designed to explore the weekly themes.

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Each daily devotion provides a Bible reading, a reflection, a challenge to apply and respond to the word, and closes with a prayer. This is a beautiful and compelling exploration of the dark, suffering side of the Passion – and how Jesus’ words lead us to the greatest hope of all. For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy." -St. Therese of Lisieux (CCC 2558) John O’Donoghue observed that “Life is growth in the art of loss.” This theme is pursued in Robert Inchausti’s The Way of Thomas Merton: A prayer journey through Lent. Nineteen short chapters, each followed by some questions for reflection, introduce us to Merton’s work, particularly his emphasis on being liberated from the “false self”. The author knows his subject, but presents Merton accessibly, without letting the material become trite or thin.