Daily Readings & Prayers for Lent I

Daily Readings & Prayers for Lent I

Prepared by Matt Hoskins.

These can be used as part of one’s own private devotion. Alternatively, they can becombined with my brief Lenten office; they can be added as readings in any of the longer offices of the Liturgy of the Hours. My hope and prayer is that you can mullover these prayerfully and find Christ in the words of His people throughout the ages.

The main themes of these daily readings are prayer, fasting, and repentance. Lentoriginally developed as a season of fasting in preparation for the chief feast of theChristian year, Easter. Combined with that has developed a very strong emphasis onrepentance over the years, in large part because it is our sins from which Christ freedus on the Cross on Good Friday. I include prayer because I have found that the twodisciplines most often discussed and most often paired together are prayer andfasting. The series of readings will culminate with a week of devotionalpoetry/hymnody that focusses upon the Cross. Other readings that seemedappropriate have been included as well.

The readings are largely patristic, although some mediaeval and modern reflectionshave made their way in; most Wednesdays have Sayings from the Desert Fathers asthe reading. The prayers are from the Book of Common Prayer, the Use of Sarum, theGelasian Sacramentary, and other late antique and mediaeval sources as they cameto me.

In the tradition of Prayer-Book Anglicanism, the Ash Wednesday Collect is prayeddaily in Lent:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost

forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and

contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our

wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and

forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

First Sunday in Lent (Lent I)

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Sermon 205, on Lent

To my spirit of devotion, it seems fitting that we, who are about to honor thePassion of our crucified Lord in the very near future, should fashion for ourselves across of the bodily pleasures in need of restraint, as the Apostle says: And they whobelong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. (1 Gal.5:24) In fact, the Christian ought to be suspended constantly on this cross through

his entire life, passed as it is in the midst of temptation. For there is no time in thislife when we can tear out the nails of which the Psalmist speaks in the words:Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear.' (Ps. 118:120) Bodily desires constitute the flesh,and the precepts of justice, the nails with which the fear of the Lord pierces ourflesh and crucifies us as victims acceptable to the Lord. Whence the same Apostle

says: 'I exhort you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodiesas a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God. (Ro. 12:1)

The BCP Collect for the First Sunday in Lent

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace touse such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obeythy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory; wholivest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.Amen.

Monday of Lent I

St Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), The Imitation of Christ 3.30

'Your slowness in turning to prayer is the greatest obstacle to receiving My

[Christ's] heavenly comfort. (Trans. Leo Sherley-Price, p. 131)

A prayer from St Thomas à Kempis

We beseech Thee, our most gracious God, preserve us from the cares of this life,lest we should be too much entangled therein; also from the many necessities ofthe body, lest we should be ensnared by pleasure; and from whatsoever is anobstacle to the soul, lest, being broken with troubles, we should be overthrown.Give us strength to resist, patience to endure, and constancy to persevere; for the

sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen. (A Chain of Prayer, p. 176)

Tuesday of Lent I

St Augustine (354-430), Sermon 205 on Lent (cont’d from Sunday of Lent I)

Hence, there is a cross in regard to which the servant of God, far from beingconfounded, rejoices, saying, ‘But as for me, God forbid that I should glory save inthe cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, andI to the world.’ (Gal. 6:14) That is a cross, I say, not of forty days’ duration, but ofone's whole life, which is symbolized by the mystical number of forty days, whether

because man, about to lead this life, is formed in the womb for forty days, as somesay, or because the four Gospels agree with the tenfold Law and four tens equalthat number, showing that both the Old and New Testaments are indispensable forus in this life, or it may be for some other and more likely reason which a keenerand superior intellect can fathom. Hence, Moses and Elias and our Lord Himself

fasted for forty days so that it might be suggested to us that in Moses and in Eliasand in Christ Himself, that is, in the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel, thispenance was performed just as it is by us, and so that, instead of being won over toand clinging to this world, we might rather put to death the old man, ‘living not inrevelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and

jealousy. But [let us] put on the Lord Jesus, and as for the flesh, take no thoughtfor its lusts’ (cf. Rom. 3:13, 14). Live always in this fashion, O Christian; if you donot wish to sink into the mire of this earth, do not come down from the cross.Moreover, if this ought to be done throughout one's entire life, with how muchgreater reason should it be done during these forty days in which this life is not

only passed but is also symbolized?

A prayer from the Gregorian Sacramentary

We beseech Thee, O Lord, give a salutary effect to our fasting, that the mortification

of our flesh may prove the nourishment of our souls; through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen. (Ancient Collects p. 79)

Wednesday of Lent I

Abba Zeno said, 'If a man wants God to hear his prayer quickly, then before heprays for anything else, even his own soul, when he stands and stretches out hishands towards God, he must pray with all his heart for his enemies. Through thisaction God will hear everything that he asks.'

BCP Collect of the Ember Days of Lent (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday after 1stSunday in Lent)

O GOD, who hast made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of

the earth, and didst send thy blessed Son Jesus Christ to preach peace to them

that are afar off and to them that are nigh: Grant that all peoples of the world may

feel after thee and find thee; and hasten, O Lord, the fulfilment of thy promise to

pour out thy Spirit upon all flesh; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Thursday of Lent I

Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica (1914-2003), Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives. Just as the slightest speck of dust can blur our vision, so, too, does the slightestworry interfere with our concentration in prayer. (103)

From the Leonine Sacramentary

Almighty and merciful God, unto Whose everlasting blessedness we ascend, not by

the frailty of the flesh, but by the activity of the soul; make us ever, by Thineinspiration, to seek after the courts of the heavenly city, and, by Thy mercy,confidently to enter them; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Ancient Collectsp. 65)

Friday of Lent I

From Revelations of Divine Love by Lady Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-1416)

The eighth revelation: the pitiful suffering of Christ as he dies; his discoloured face,and dried-up body16 It was after this that Christ showed me something of his passion near the timeof his dying. I saw his dear face, dry, bloodless, and pallid with death. It becamemore pale, deathly, and lifeless. Then, dead, it turned a blue colour, graduallychanging to a browny blue, as the flesh continued to die. For me his passion wasshown primarily through his blessed face, and particularly by his lips. There too Isaw these same four colours, though previously they had been, as I had seen,fresh, red, and lovely. It was a sorry business to see him change as heprogressively died. His nostrils too shrivelled and dried before my yes, and hisdear body became black and brown as it dried up in death; it was no longer its ownfair, living colourFor at the same time as our blessed Lord and Saviour was dying on the cross therewas, in my picture of it, a strong, dry, and piercingly cold wind. Even when theprecious blood was all drained from that dear body, there still remained a certainmoisture in his flesh, as was shown me. The loss of blood and the pain within, thegale and the cold without, met together in his dear body. Between them the four(two outside, two in) with the passage of time dried up the flesh of Christ. Thepain, sharp and bitter, lasted a very long time, and I could see it painfully dryingup the natural vitality of his flesh. I saw his dear body gradually dry out, bit by bit,withering with dreadful suffering. And while there remained any natural vitality, solong he suffered pain. And it seemed to me, that with all this drawn-out pain, he

had been a week in dying, dying and on the point of passing all that time heendured this final suffering. When I say ‘it seemed to me that he had been a weekin dying’ I am only meaning that his dear body was so discoloured and dry, soshrivelled, deathly, and pitiful, that he might well have been seven nights in dying.And I thought to myself that the withering of his flesh was the severest part, as itwas the last, of all Christ’s passion.

Sarum Collect for the Friday of Lent I

Be favourable, O Lord, to Thy people, and pitifully comfort again with Thy gracioushelp those whom Thou fillest with devotion to Thee. Through Jesus Christ ourLord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holly Spirit, one God, world withoutend. Amen.

Saturday of Lent I

From Monastic Wisdom: the Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast (d. 1959)

Just as man dies when he stops breathing, so, too, does the soul die withoutcontinuous and endless prayer. (p. 221)

St Augustine, Confessions (398)

Who will grant me to rest content in you? To whom shall I turn for the gift of yourcoming into my heart and filling it to the brim, so that I may forget all the wrong Ihave done and embrace you alone, my only source of good?