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| JOIN US AS WE OBSERVE THE LENTEN SEASON Here Are Your Apostolic Directives MAIN RULE: GIVE UP SOMETHING YOU ENJOY!!! 1) FASTING & ABSTINENCE Abstinence lowers the quality of food (usually by not eating meat) and fasting lowers the quantity, and usually means not more than a light breakfast, one full meal, and one half meal daily each fast day. The rule is "keep it smaller and keep it simpler. " Smaller portions of food, and simpler menus. Don't eat so much during Lent. Not because you necessarily have to lose weight, but because the practice will give you strength in your spiritual life by weakening the attractions of the sensate pleasures. Fasting makes the waistline shrink and the heart get larger, and abstinence makes the heart grow fonder. Indulge in both fasting and abstinence during Lent to have a clearer vision of the Risen Christ, come Easter. 2) PRAYING For the forty days of Lent, start and end each day with prayer. Read Morning and Evening Prayer and/or Family Prayer. Dust off that old grace you used to say before eating - spend some table time in quiet reflection and prayer instead of chattering and chomping. Pray daily, making sure you indulge in all the qualities of Christian prayer - adoration, thanksgiving, petition, penitence, and invocation. Attend at least one 5am Thursday Prayer. Pray daily, and you will have a clearer vision of the Risen Christ, come Easter. 3) BIBLE READING Do this daily, also, There's solace, insight, encouragement, grace and a whole lot more in scripture, and that can't be said about any other book in your library. The Good Book is precisely that, and those who read it daily learn how to be good - godly - themselves. Read Holy Writ daily, and you will have a clearer vision of the Risen Christ, come Easter. 4) CORPORATE WORSHIP Corporate worship is a basic Christian duty. We should worship God every Sunday in his Church. Doing so brings us understanding, strengthens our faith, gives us hope, fills us with encouragement, and gives us the first-hand experience of being loved by God - and that gives us the ability to love others more fully. There is nothing we can do on Sunday that is more important than being in God's House and being fed by His grace-filled presence with the fellowship of our sisters and brothers in Christ. Make a commitment not to miss one single Sunday in God's House this Lenten season. Jesus told us to this do, (Luke 22:19; 1Cor 11:24-25) so let's do it together, every single Sunday, and you will have a clearer vision of the Risen Christ, come Easter. 5) WORKS OF MERCY The final step is to, do all such good works as ... [God]...has prepared for us to walk in. There are fourteen 'works" which enable us to put our faith in Christ into action in our life. They are both spiritual and temporal and are as follows: Spiritual Works Of Mercy (1) converting the sinner, (2) instructing the ignorant, (3) counseling the doubtful, (4) comforting the sorrowful, (5) bearing wrongs patiently, (6) forgiving injuries, (7) praying for each other. Corporal Works Of Mercy (1) feeding the hungry, (2) giving drink to the thirsty, (3) clothing the naked, (4) harboring the stranger, (5) visiting the sick, (6) ministering to prisoners, (7) burying the dead and that which is dead. Finally, and no doubt most importantly, let your Lenten lapses and failures - whatever they may be serve only to increase your dependence upon God. None of us will do all we want to do during Lent. That's the human condition. The point is not to get a good grade; it is to increase your capacity to love God and your neighbor. After all, Lent is a time to learn how to love - God's way - once again. That's the whole point of the season! |
| Bishop H.D. Haywood, Sr. D.D. Apostle and Senior Pastor |
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| LENTEN SEASON EXPLAINED LENT in Latin means to Lengthen and Spring, with an idea to "FORTIFY" our inner being. We are knowledgeable of the pagan error in early christian church history and have no associated with such. Ours is purely spiritual "fortified" in Christ Our Lord and Savior with emphasis on holiness and a true prophetic mandate. In the second century, Lent was the period in which new converts went through an intense process in preparation for baptism at the Easter Vigil.Over the next few centuries, the tedious process began to diminish; as a result, during the fourth century, Lent became a forty day period of penitence and fasting for all Christians, not only new converts.1 In A.D. 325, the Council of Nicaea referred to Lent as a forty day period that precedes Easter on the Christian calendar. The number forty is significant in light of Jesus’ forty day period of fasting in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry (Matthew 4:1-2). Today, Lent consists of the forty days before Easter in which Christians prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ by practicing the spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, and penitence. Sundays are always excluded as fast days during Lent because they are mini-Easters that symbolize the weekly celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Many Western churches only exclude Sundays as fast days during Lent, but Eastern Orthodox Churches exclude both Saturdays and Sundays. Subsequently, in Eastern Orthodox churches, the season begins earlier and is spread out over a longer period of time. Despite differences in chronological arrangement, both Western and Eastern churches honor the period for a minimum of forty days. |
| especially the giving up of meat, alcohol, sweets, and other types of food.Other traditions do not place as great an emphasis on fasting, but focus on charitable deeds, especially helping those in physical need with food and clothing, or simply the giving of money to charities. Most Christian churches that observe Lent at all focus on it as a time of prayer, especially penance, repenting for failures and sin as a way to focus on the need for God’s grace. It's really a preparation to celebrate God’s marvelous redemption at Easter, and the resurrected life we live, and hope for, as Christians. Many Christians who follow the liturgical calendar, such as Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and United Methodists, value the season of Lent as a time for embracing physical weakness through deliberate self-denial in order to secure spiritual strength in Christ (2 Cor. 12:7b-10). Furthermore, many Christians who have not followed the liturgical calendar can find value in Lent’s symbolic power as a season of preparation for celebration SourceS: Jonathan Langston Chism and Dennis Bratcher CLICK OR DAILY LENT READINGS 2012 |
