The First Sunday of Lent
Daily Archives: February 10, 2008
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The Two Crowns — Sir Frank Dicksee
The Great Litany
At Saint John’s we begin the First Sunday of Lent with the great litany chanted in procession as a way to formally begin the season of penitence and reflection. This great bidding prayer with responses is the oldest part of the Book of Common Prayer, the first translated into English during the reign of Henry VIII.
It is long and gathers up the various conditions and calamities of humanity into a petition to God on behalf of each person then praying and as intercession for the whole human community and the earth itself.
Hereby we are brought to mind of our own mortality and facing such come to our proper place in the scheme of things. Lent is a good thing – it helps us become clear about what is important.
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Wounded Angel — Hugo Simberg
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Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
The Path of the Law (1897)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. U.S. judge, 1841-1935
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Jeremy Geddes — Fan
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Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Puddinhead Wilson ch. 19 Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calender (1894)
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clements) U.S. writer, 1835-1910