The Season of Lent

Lent is the period of 40 days, excluding Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes with Easter. Sundays are not included as days in Lent because they are celebrations of the Resurrection. Because of this, they are traditionally seen as “Feast” days. The Lenten season reflects the 40 years Israel wandered in the desert, and the 40 days Jesus spent in prayer and fasting in the desert prior to the start of his public ministry. Often people choose to give something up for Lent, as a simple way of saying “no” to something, just as we do when we resist temptation – an important theme of the season.

When choosing to remove something from our everyday lives, a form of fasting, we seek to be filled with Christ instead. As noted, Sundays are Feast days – celebrations of the Resurrection that are not included in Lent – so we don’t have to abstain on those days (you can have your cup of coffee!)

As a church family we engage with the Lenten season through our Ash Wednesday Service, reading one of the Gospels together, a Lenten Project, a Lenten Seminar, and finally, our Good Friday and Easter services. Information about all of these can be found below.

We invite you to join with us in any or all of these ways as follow Christ through this unique season.

Ash Wednesday Services

Wednesday, February 22 | 5:30 & 7:00 pm

This year we invite you to join us in person for an Ash Wednesday service. Learn about the promises of Ash Wednesday as we open the door to the seasons of Lent and Easter.

Good Friday & Easter Services

Friday, April 7: 8:30 am, 10:00 am, 11:45 am
Saturday, April 8: 6:30 pm
Sunday, April 9: 7:00 am, 9:00 am, 11:00 am

We invite you to join us onsite or online for Good Friday and Easter services as we celebrate the victory of the risen Jesus.

The Gospel of Matthew Readings

As a church family we have traditionally read through one of the Gospels together in a three year cycle starting with Matthew (Year A), Mark (Year B), and Luke (Year C). This is Year A in the church calendar which means we will be reading the Gospel of Matthew. We’ve made available a reading plan that includes some guidance for engagement that you can download and follow.

Download the Reading Plan

2023 LENTEN SEMINAR

March 10-11, 2023

This weekend seminar invites those who attend to see the spiritual life from the perspective of a pilgrimage that requires illumination, discernment, a surrendering to mystery, risk-taking and a willingness to be changed by the journey. Observing the seasons of ‘sacred time’ according to the Christian calendar will be presented as a time-honoured strategy for continuously connecting one’s personal faith story with the Divine narrative of redemption as revealed in the person and life of Jesus Christ. Special attention will be given to understanding the season of Lent and the specific role it plays in ordering the spiritual rhythms of the Christian year.

The liturgical year is an adventure in bringing the Christian life to fulness, the heart to alert, the soul to focus. It does not concern itself with the questions of how to make a living. It concerns itself with questions of how to make a life…The civic new year as we know it is a purely solar event, a chart of the planet’s journey around the sun. But it is not, except in the most private and personal of ways, the story of the rest of us, the narrative of our spiritual lives.

Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year. (2009), pp. 4,5

Please join us on Friday, March 10 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm & Saturday, March 11 from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm as Dr. Nienkirchen walks us through this season of ’Sacred Time’.

2023 LENTEN PROJECT

In Partnership with Moviendo Esperanzas

For most of us, daily mobility and access to our community is something we take for granted. Yet in developing countries like Costa Rica, over 700,000 people living with a physical disability have no access to state funding or support. This lack of mobility is a severe limitation and impacts access to health care and employment. Sadly, more than 50% of those with disabilities in Costa Rica live in poverty and have little hope of improving their situation.

For this year’s Lenten Project, we’re partnering with Moviendo Esperanzas, an organization that works on the ground in Costa Rica, to help alleviate this problem.

Each of us can get involved by donating the cost of a small wheel, a large wheel, or a whole wheelchair. Our total fundraising goal is $70,000, which would allow Southview to provide a container of 200 wheelchairs to people in need.

This is our 2023 Lenten Project: to offer mobility and access to those who desperately need it. May God use our gifts as a way to create Moving Hope for the people of Costa Rica, their families, and their communities.