by Christine Sine
This morning has been a time for me to contemplate the love of God and I hope that you will join me.
From the moment we were first crafted from the soil and breathed into with divine breath, we have been surrounded by the love of the holy and eternal One, the depth of which are summed up in these words in Romans 8:35-39.
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
However this love looks very different from the love that we see in movies or that is sold to us in fragrances and jewelry. God’s love is both eternal and all embracing. It is both individual and communal. We cannot love God without loving those around us. And we cannot love ourselves unless we love others too.
Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
As you read through these words and contemplate the deep and enduring love of God, how do you feel? Does it draw you closer to the one that longs for an intimate relationship with you?
With Lent fast approaching, I realize that it is time to update my resource lists. This is one of several posts on resources for the season that you might find helpful. You can check them all out here. Enjoy.
My Favourite Resources: Old and New
Here is a sampling of ideas from around the world some new, some from previous years, that I find myself revisiting each year.
A good place to start is with this mini Lenten retreat:
- Now check out the resources I have posted on Pinterest for Lent Easter and Pentecost. I add to these regularly so there are always new ideas to look at.
- In 2015, Rachel Held Evans published a great list of 40 ideas for Lent that is still one of my favorites.
- Cabad.org has an excellent outline for a Christian Seder celebration.
- Lent Event: “bringing people together to build peace and beat poverty. Pledge to live simply for the 40 days of Lent and help make a difference for people striving to be free from poverty and injustice.”
- The Episcopal Church has a great section on Lenten Resources.
- Ascetic Life of Motherhood shares Lenten resources from the Orthodox Christian perspective.
- Franciscan Action Network shares a free download called 40 Days; 40 Ways A Guide to a Green Lent.
- Growing a Rule of Life – a very interesting course that encourages us to develop a rule of life as a Lenten discipline. It uses garden metaphors and some fun exercises. I used this a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.
- His Mercy is New offers Praying Psalm 51 for Lent free download prayer cards.
- Godspace writer, Lilly Lewin, also has this excellent resource called Experiential Stations of the Cross.
And, of course, Godspace has several free downloads:
- 40 Ideas for Lent
- Hungering for Life
- Gospel Eyes – Download: Poetry by Jeannie Kendall – new in 2021
- Maundy Thursday Love Feast and Liturgy by St. Andrew’s Episcopal church Seattle
And check out the other resource lists, videos and prayers accessed through our church calendar resource page.
Lent at Home Resources for 2023:
- Mennonite Church USA – Worship Guide download
- St Nicholas Center – Lent in the Home
- Catholic Icing – How To Set Up A Lent Table- Lent Home Altar Ideas
- Building Faith – Lent in a Bag
- Real Life at Home – 50+ Lent Ideas Printable
- African American Lectionary Season of Lent
- Were You There – a Lenten Devotional exploring African American Spirituals
More resource lists can be found on these websites below:
Looking for A Little Fun During Lent?
- Lent Madness: This looks like fun, 32 saints are placed into a tournament-like single elimination bracket. Each pairing remains open for a set period of time and people vote for their favorite saint. Sixteen saints make it to the Round of the Saintly Sixteen; eight advance to the Round of the Elate Eight; four make it to the Faithful Four; two to the Championship; and the winner is awarded the coveted Golden Halo.
- The Walk to Jerusalem is a fun way to increase physical activity during Lent!
- Chalice Press has their 2018 Lenten materials including this helpful Lenten Colouring Book.
- Another great resource is this: Twenty Reflective Movies for Lent.
Litanies for Lent
I love this series of litanies for Lent and Easter by Fran Pratt:
- Litany for Lent, Week 1 “Temptation”
- Litany for Fat Tuesday
- Litany for Ash Wednesday
- Litany for Lent, Week 2 “Mercy”
- Litany for Lent, Week 3 “Hunger”
- Litany for Lent, Week 4 “Thirst”
- Litany for Lent, Week 5 “Waiting”
- Litany for Palm Sunday, “Fulfillment”
- Litany for Good Friday, “Death”
- Resurrection Sunday: “Life”
Liturgical writers we love
Black liturgies on Instagram and Facebook
Disrupt worship project
John Van De Laar – Sacredise
Need Some Daily or Weekly Reflections?
- Bread for the World always produces wonderful Lenten resources, as well as very helpful information on poverty that challenge us to face the issues of hunger.
- Episcopal Relief and Development devotional focuses on creating economic opportunities and strengthening communities, with a particular focus on empowering women. They are available in both English and Spanish and can be downloaded for free.
- From the Australian Board of Mission: Into the Desert and other Lent resources.
- Another great list of resources that is so rich you can get lost in anglicansonline.org.
- Gaye Boss wrote Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing, where readers can gain insight and lament for the “profound loss of species”.
- From Dust to Triumph: Reflections for a Holy Lent – an inspiring collection of Lenten reflections that you can read online.
- Also, from the Uniting Church Australia, this excellent free download of Lenten reflections for 2019.
- Biola University shares a great resource called The Lent Project with daily reflections.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland have some good study courses available for Lent: Their 2022 theme is: Following Christ in the Footsteps of the Saints – Guided by the story of St Winefride/Gwenffrewi. Older studies include: Parables and Possessions a six-session study resource based on 2012 the Church of Scotland report of A right relationship with money.; Walking and Praying with Christians of the Middle East and the 2016 addition Pilgrimage. In 2017, they have added Returning Home: Christian Faith in Encounter with other Faiths and for 2018 their emphasis is on Hope. I love the theme for 2019, The Mystery of God, encouraging us to look more deeply into the wonder and mystery of God. For 2020, they asked “What biblical text sets your heart on fire?” in Opening the Scriptures course.
Looking for A Devotional?
- A Just Passion: A Six-Week Lenten Journey published by IVP contains devotions from a range of authors for the Lenten season.
- Eloheh provides a free Lenten Devotional: Drawing Closer to Creator & Creation: An Indigenous Journey Through Lent. Sign up on their website and they will send it to you!
- Joy Lenton, a Godspace writer, just published this incredible book for the Lenten season: Experiencing Lent: Sensing the Sacred in Our Midst.
- In recent years, I have used Walter Brueggemann’s A Way Other Than Our Own for Lent.
- You might also like to check out Richard Rohr’s Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent.
- Or, The Little Book of Lent with a variety of reflections from authors such as Desmond Tutu, Sheila Cassidy and Rowan Williams.
- Renovaré, one of my favourite spiritual formation sites has some excellent Lenten devotionals.
- Ave Maria Press has a broad array of Lenten resources available.
- Chalice Press also has an excellent array of Lenten materials.
- InterVarsity Press also has a very expansive and important list of books for Lent.
- Our devotional A Journey into Wholeness: Soul Travel from Lent to Easter, which may also be purchased in a downloadable bundle here
Want to Focus on Simplicity and Sustainability?
- From Simple Living Works: Let’s Get Ready for a Simpler Lent and Easter.
- Eco-Palms: The University of Minnesota Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management (CINRAM) is working together with the Rainforest Alliance TREES program and Smartwood to certify palms harvested from the forests of Mexico and Guatemala for sale to Christian congregations in the United States and Europe.
- The Oil Lamp has shared several helpful links to sites that suggest ways to incorporate a carbon fast into your Lenten practices. They also have some good basic suggestions for a carbon fast here.
- I particularly enjoyed this link recommended by Archbishop Thabo Magkoba, of the Anglican Environmental Network in South Africa: A Carbon Fast for Lent from 2016. An updated version from 2020 comes from the St. Dennis Parish.
- Earth Ministry’s LeAnne Beres wrote this helpful article about taking a Carbon fast which includes links to other great resources.
Need Resources for Church Worship or Lenten Studies?
- Lent and Beyond – an Anglican prayer blog has some of the best reflections and devotionals around. I particularly enjoyed the Ash Wednesday index and Lent and Ash Wednesday Activities for Families.
- Presbyterian Mission Agency also has good resources for Lent.
- Jonny Baker in the UK always has great resources available for worship. Here is his Lenten link.
- The Lenten resources at textweek.com, as usual form, has one of the most comprehensive resource lists available.
- From Australia: Per Crucem Ad Lucem.
- In New Zealand, Bosco Peters always has good resources listed.
- And from South Africa, John Van deLaar at Sacredise is worth checking out.
- The Ignatian Workout for Lent online retreat is well worth participating in.
- “40 Lent: What do you give up when the world gives out?” from the Jesuits at Loyola Press. It’s a social media series focusing on the way a group of adults copes with the aftermath of a disaster.
- I highly recommend the resources on the Busted Halo website for Lent. Start with this 25 Great Things You Can Do For Lent video and spend some time thinking about what you can do for Lent this year.
- Singing from the Lectionary is an Australia site that contains an extensive list of relevant songs for each week of the church calendar for either congregational or small group use.
Please check out our complete list of Godspace resources for Lent through Holy Week including our free downloads.
Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list so if you know of other resources that you think should be added, please leave a comment here.
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A series of poems on love would not be complete without Shakespeare’s famous Sonnet 116. The sonnet appeared in Emma Thompson’s screenplay for the film of Sense and Sensibility, and is memorably quoted by Kate Winslet, who played romantic Marianne. Perhaps you would like to watch this delightful Jane Austin movie and quote the sonnet to your love this Valentine’s Day.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Today’s love poem The Good Morrow is from one of the greats of English literature, John Donne. (1572 – 1631) Amazingly this was probably his earliest poem. It weaves sensual and spiritual love together from the point of view of an awakening lover, while also making use of Biblical references.
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
by Christine Sine
A “true” or “canonical” icon is most often said to be “written,” for it is indeed theology written in the language of colour and form. Every line and each choice of colour, dispositions and relationships of persons, proportions and perspectives all have their deep and specific meaning in a true icon.
An icon is not merely an art object. It is not intended to be like a stained glass window, a so-called “bible of the poor,” nor is it merely for beholding. Rather, the icon is like a transparent window that is meant to be looked through. It is like a door one leaves behind as one crosses the threshold into another dimension of reality.(What is an Icon)
Theology written in the language of colour and form. I have always thought of theology as written or spoken words, but last week I attended an icon workshop and a whole new world opened to me. It was my first opportunity to write an icon and I found it to be both fascinating and frustrating.
icon template
We started by tracing an outline of the image on a white board and then added black shadows in the places that would later be dark in colour. Unfortunately my board would not absorb the colour and I soon ended up with black beads all across my board. Undeterred the iconographer, Peter Pearson, applied a yellow wash. Again my board reacted in a strange way — my wash made it look as though Mary and Jesus had measles. “It doesn’t matter.” Peter kept saying, the layers and highlights will cover it. I thought he was just trying to placate me.
icon with measles
Seek to become an instrument through which God can create something wonderful. For this to happen, you may have to suspend judgements, letting go of your need to create the best icon the world has ever seen. While you’re at it, let go the fear of creating something ghastly.” (Peter Pearson, A Brush With God xiii)
Suspend judgement, let go of the need to create the best icon ever – yep those were definitely words I needed to hear.
Then we applied our base colours and not only the mottling but the whole image seemed to disappear. “How will I ever get this to look the way it should?” I wondered.
What happened to the faces?
But Peter was right. As we added highlights, sometimes blocks of lighter color, sometimes just lines, the true image popped into being. It was amazing, a prayerful and profound experience.
Adding highlights
One thing I realized as I looked at my finished icon was that I was very aware of the imperfections — brushstrokes in the wrong places, messy paint, and some of the blemishes still visible, but the further away I got the better the image appeared and what others saw was a beautiful and they thought, professionally done image.
The finished icon
When I got home I ordered Peter’s books A Brush With God, and praying with my icon and reading the book has profoundly impacted me. Over the week I have spent much time reflecting on my image and the lessons it has and continues to teach me.
I am not Blemished beyond Redemption
How often I have felt like that board with the yellow wash – diseased and ugly without any hope of redemption and God says “It doesn’t matter, you are a work in progress, my colours, my highlights, will cover all your blemishes.” I didn’t believe it at the time but God has covered a lot of what I considered ugly with divine “paint” – layers of love and care that cover all my blemishes.
There Are Times When I Need to “Disappear”
There are times in my life that God has layered so much love over me that not only the blemishes but the whole image of who I was seemed to disappear. All I can see is a faint outline of the true image of whom God intends me to be.
God’s Highlights Make The Image Pop
As God adds highlights to my image, the divine image hidden within appears and the richness, the beauty and the wonder of God’s image within me is revealed.
There are other important lessons I learned from writing my icon
Icons Portray Community Tradition Not Individualism
There are proscribed ways to write an icon. Colours with meaning, shapes with a purpose. All of this to portray an image that is true to the community tradition, the cultural reality rather than my individual perception and imagination.
“We are not licensed to create images of Christ the Theotokos, the angels or the saints according to our private imaginations. Leave your ego at the door” (A Brush With God. )
Blessing the icons at church
Icons are a Form of Prayer
Icons – real icons — emerge as the fruit of a life of prayer and invite others into an encounter with God through prayer. (A Brush With God xiii)
Peter suggested that we pray with each brush stroke, allowing the rhythm of our brush to flow to the rhythm of God’s words emerging from within us. This week, all my prayers seem to emerge as a brush stroke adding to the divine image not only within me but within all I interact with.
My icon now sits on my desk as an inspiration for further refection and contemplation. I am not sure that I always look through it to the revelation of God it can inspire in me. It is still too easy for me to be caught in the imperfections of what I have created, but that in itself is a revelation. As I am able to let go of myself flashes of inspiration and at times breathtaking revelation seem to happen.
How often am I caught up in my own imperfections which hide the doorways through which God wants to reveal more of the divine image and the holy way of life intended for me? Perhaps that is a question that all of us should reflect on.
For those who are unversed in the art of iconography Windows to Heaven: Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics is a great place to start.
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What would it look like to fall in love with God for Valentine’s Day? Here is a great prayer/poem to read and reflect on.
Recognizing the depth of God’s love as it is expressed in the story of Jesus, falling in love with this God whose love has not limits, really does change everything in a way that is totally transformative of our lives.
The prayer is attributed to Father Pedro Arrupe (1903- 1991) from the Basque region of Spain who became the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus. I was first given this prayer on a card several years ago but have recently also come across it on Ignatian Spirituality.com
Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is,
than falling in love in a quite absolute final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekend,
what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
As Valentine’s Day approaches I find myself thinking a lot about the real meaning of love. I feel this poem by Mary Oliver is a great one to reflect on at this season
Of Love
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord.
Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not.
Sometimes it was all but ephemeral,
maybe only an afternoon,
but not less real for that.’
They stay in my mind,
these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me,
of which there are so many.
You and you and you,
whom I have the fortune to meet,
or maybe missed.
Love, love, love, it was the core of my life,
from which of course comes the word for the heart.
And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women’
and some – now carry my revelation with you –
were trees.
Or places.
Or music flying above the names of their makers.
Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best,
the most loyal for certain,’
who looked so faithfully into my eyes, every morning.
So I imagine such love of the world –
its fervency, its shining,
its innocence and anger to give of itself
I imagine this is how it began.
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