Alumni Lent Article

Read the latest Alumni article for Lent

St Mellitus is a great community to be part of, full of grace, laughter, challenge, and generosity. I’m now a staff member, having been an ordinand here in the early days. It has been a supportive place to be during the pandemic years, a community committed to rhythms of life that sustain during times of pressure. Each of us will have different feelings as we look back over this season, one of challenge and of deep knowledge of our need for God’s peace. How are you feeling, as winter turns to spring? How are you feeling, as the picture of ministry life shifts again? As we begin the season of lent, looking ahead to Holy Week and beyond, what are your plans to inhabit this time of reflection and preparation?

This lent, I want to live differently. I want to feel differently, to build community in a new way. To fast from the activity and choose vulnerability.

Our emotions have been under pressure in recent times in new ways. The pandemic has worsened mental ill health for some and exacerbated the loneliness that can lead to emotional overwhelm. And in ministry life, whether as an incumbent, a youth worker, a curate, or a member of a ministry team, we will each have experienced unique shifts in our emotional wellbeing. How much can we find places to articulate the losses, to hold the privilege and the grief of accompanying those we have been called to serve through the last few months and years?

In Luke’s gospel (22:39-53), we read the account of Jesus as he is betrayed with a kiss, broken, sweating blood, bleeding prayer. And he challenges his friends, those with whom he has built a life and a community, can you not stay awake and pray? In this moment of crisis, they can only withdraw, sleep because their grief is too heavy. He challenges them to respond differently, to feel differently so that they can withstand this trial.

This lent, I want to live differently. I want to feel differently, to build community in a new way. To fast from the activity and choose vulnerability. To fast from keeping a stiff upper lip and choose a faint wobble that lets others know I’m human, that I am fragile at times and need those around me to lift me up. To build community in a new way these days, a way that brings light on the darkest days, when ministry feels heavy and like we are in it alone. To let others in, to let them see the things that matter to me, to find new points of connection in the uncertainty of life. To counter that loneliness that brings emotional distortion.

Each of us will have different feelings as we look back over this season, one of challenge and of deep knowledge of our need for God’s peace.

How will you find that place of stillness, that time to name your emotions and work out how to speak them? To allow those around you to bring encouragement, and to fast from needing to be in control. To know God’s presence and peace even as you don’t know what is ahead. As Jesus looked at his friends, he spoke an end to the chaos; “No more of this!” (Verse 51). May you know the calm of his presence, even in your vulnerability, and may you hear his voice speaking peace this lent, however, you feel.