Ash Wednesday in Our Home...

Today is the start of Lent! We love observing the liturgical year in our home and although we are attending a Evangelical Church -which does not observe the liturgical year, I am determined not let these precious times slide by.

As our church does not give an Ashes Mass, we will receive our ashes instead at home, at the foot of Christ. We will burn last years Palm Sunday crosses (which is what the ashes are). We will start with the Collect:

Almighty and holy God

Your son, in obedience to the Spirit

fasted forty days in the desert:

give us grace to discipline ourselves

that we may press on to Easter

with eager faith and love;

through Jesus Christ our Lord

We will read:

Isaiah 58: 1-8                                            - Genuine Fasting

1 Corinthians 9: 24-27                               - The Christian Athlete

Matthew 6: 16-21                                     - True fasting and heavenly treasure

We will follow the order of service of The Blessing and Giving of Ashes in the Anglican Prayer Book

I have set up our Lenten display which will hopefully help keep our attitude of penitence and prayer forefront in our minds.

In the middle of the window in our schoolroom, I have a purple cross with the words 'repent'. On either side each of my girls has her own Lent count down calendar.

We used this calendar with much success last year. Important events which kick off Holy Week are marked which gives us a real sense of purpose as we journey towards Easter. You can download your own countdown calendar from Catholic Icing.

Next in our display is a simple wooden cross made from twigs from the garden. The cross is planted in the 'desert', a reminder of the time Jesus spent fasting and praying to His heavenly Father. The purple ribbon will be replaced with a white one come Easter morn. The purple tin has the inscription, 'By His stripes we were healed - Is. 53:3'. A tea light sits at the foot of the cross reminding us that Jesus is the light of the world.

Over to the left of our display is a jar labelled, 'Sacrifices and Good Deeds'. This wonderful idea helps us all to be purposeful in thinking of others and trying to be as helpful and kind as possible. Each sacrificial or good deed enables one to pop a been into the jar. On Easter morning all the beans will be 'magically' transformed into colourful jellybeans  This is a visual aid to first of all see how many beans we can put in the jar as we strive to be more like Jesus, and secondly, the idea of storing up treasures in heaven. On Easter morning the drab beans are transformed into a colourful treasure, beautiful in Gods eyes. Of course the girls do not know about the jellybeans yet. I don't want the driving force to be jellybeans, I want them to understand that sacrificial and good acts are pleasing to God and that there is an unseen reward waiting for us one day.

So this little interactive display will carry us through on our Lenten journey. Holy week will have a whole lot of plans all it's own which I'll share those closer to the time. Hope today is a blessed one for your all :o)