Ash Wednesday is tomorrow and signifies the beginning of Lent, it’s significant in the Christian calendar and is traditionally marked with fasting and prayer because Lent is usually slap bang in the middle of the hungry gap and the Church loves to make a virtue of a necessity!

I’ve been thinking about what if anything I’m going to do to mark the season, it’s tricky as I don’t really feel part of Grace for various reasons and not having a church community makes it difficult but I do find Lent useful for lots of reasons. So this is what I’m going to do.

• Communion once a week. I miss the simplicity of Mass and the Eucharist for the simple way that it grounds me spiritually (yes I’m aware of how pretentious that sounds but it’s true nevertheless!) and I happen to be working practically next door to St Paul’s Cathedral and they have daily Eucharist at 8am. So I’m going to put the two together.
• Stations of the Cross. I actually wrote a Stations of the Cross meditation and although I’m not going to do it repeatedly, I’m going to do once station a day until Good Friday. So I start on 6 April.
• Donate to the Foodbank. I do this fairly often but I’m not consistent, so over Lent, three items weekly when I do my shop as part of my food budget.
• Fast. I’m not big on deprivation but I have a sweet tooth that really needs reining in. So I’m going to give up sweets and chocolate for the duration and that means no cheating on Sundays. Every time I would have bought sweets or chocolate, I can add the money to a pot and use it to buy more stuff for the foodbank after Lent. So it’s improving for me and the world just a little bit!