The real question of Lent

Unfortunately, the practice of entering into the Lenten season has often been reduced to the question: “What are you giving up for Lent?” This is a fine question, but it can only take us so far. The real question of the Lenten season is: How will I find ways to return to God with all my heart?

--from an Ash Wednesday sermon
“Lent: An Invitation to Return to God”
by Ruth Haley Barton

I am not what I once was

“I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient!
I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!
I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.
Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

--John Newton as quoted in The Christian Pioneer (1856)
edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks

It is your sin, your own sin

You cannot excuse yourself by the unjust command of your superior; nor the ill example of your pastor(priest), whose life counter-preaches his doctrine, for that shall aggravate his, but not excuse your sin; nor the influence of stars, or such a working of a necessary and inevitable and unconditioned decree of God as may obstruct a religious walking in this life, or a happy resting in the life to come. It is none of these, not the sin of your Father, not the sin of the present times, not the sin of your pastor(priest), nor of destiny, nor of decrees, but it is your sin, your own sin.

--John Donne (from A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings
for Lent and Easter Week, Morehouse Publishing 2004).

Set your soul in quietness.

Snow can never emit flame.
Water can never issue fire.
A thorn bush can never produce a fig.
Just so, your heart can never be free
from oppressive thoughts, words, and actions
until it has purified itself internally.
Be eager to walk this path.
Watch your heart always.
Constantly say the prayer
“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
Be humble.
Set your soul in quietness.
The more the rain falls on the earth,
the softer it makes it;
similarly, Christ’s holy name
gladdens the earth of our heart
the more we call upon it.

— Hesychius of Sinai