Sundays in Lent

_{Emil Nolde (German, 1867–1956), Dark Red Sea, ca. 1938. Watercolor. Nolde Museum, Seebüll, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.}

As we enter the season of Lent, you will notice that the tone of our Sunday services will shift more solemn and penitential. The “alleluia’s” are gone. Flowers are replaced with greenery. We chant the psalm. The Summary of the Law is expanded to the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments). We include the Prayer of Humble Access during the Eucharist. And the Gloria is replaced with the Trisagion: “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy upon us.”

As you can imagine, all of this is intentional, meant to heighten our sense of need and frailty. Lent is a 40-day journey in the wilderness, a time that doesn’t lend itself to joyous shouts of praise, but prayerful reflection and repentance.

This shift is especially noticeable this Sunday, the First Sunday in Lent. We encourage you to arrive early, find a seat, and sit in prayerful silence before the service begins. After the Choral Prelude on Psalm 51, we will pray in chant the Great Litany together.

A litany is a long intercessory prayer including various petitions said by the leader with fixed responses by the congregation, used as early as the fifth century in Rome. The Great Litany was the first English language rite prepared by Archbishop Cranmer, published in 1544.

Praying the Great Litany together is especially appropriate during Lent, taking the place of the Prayers of the People as well as the Confession. When we pray the Great Litany, we are participating again in the historic worship of the ancient Church as well as in the heritage of our Anglican tradition.