Lent at Saint Michael’s

A holy fast envelops us, calling us to pause and reflect. Lent is a penitential season of forty days and nights (excluding Sundays) when we are asked to tuck away our exuberant “Alleluia” cries so that we might search for a deeper meaning of Christ’s time here on earth. 

Ash Wednesday

Feb. 22, 12 Noon & 7 PM

The Imposition of Ashes and celebration of Holy Communion on Ash Wednesday sets your pattern for the observance of a Holy Lent.

2023 Lenten Meditations

from Episcopal Relief and Development

Sign up to receive daily emails or download a PDF at https://bit.ly/erd2023lent. This year’s devotional helps us meditate on the commandment to love our neighbor and consider the meaning of this fundamental instruction in our daily lives.

Worship in Lent

On the Sundays in Lent, we will begin worship with a Lenten Litany. A litany is a prayer in multiple parts with several petitions. This homegrown litany is adapted from the Episcopal Church’s Enriching Our Worship, 1998, with minor additions from the Book of Common Prayer. Our Lenten Litany begins with an Invocation of the Holy Trinity, continues with what you might recognize as Prayers of the People, and concludes with a call to confession which leads naturally into the Penitential Order. This is done to focus our hearts and minds on penitence and forgiveness near the start of the liturgy.

Our worship space, liturgy, and music have been transformed to help encourage and inspire reflection and contemplation.

Our worship space: You will see deep purple dupioni silk banners, decked with painted Birch branches pregnant with the buds of Spring, hanging in the niches. Gaze toward the altar and notice it is bare slate. On the retable, you’ll find bare branches instead of flowers. Our iconic stained glass rose window is also covered, muting its many colors.

Our liturgy and music: Music takes on a contemplative component that draws greatly from the breadth and depth of our Anglican heritage. Musical preludes and postludes are omitted.

Deliberate silence occurs after the sermon, begun and ended by the sounding of a singing bowl, allowing time to contemplate what we’ve heard in the liturgy of the word. We chant the Psalms to plainsong; this often reveals new meaning and interpretation not encountered in accompanied or metrical Psalm settings. These transformations are done to allow us to reflect in quiet and to open our minds to different vistas and glimpses of the Divine.