Milnrow & Newhey March 2022

Update from St Thomas’, Newhey
and St James’, Milnrow
What are you giving up
for Lent then?
Every year somebody asks me this question
but often they are surprised by the answer.
In the early days of Christianity Easter was the day
when new Christians were baptized and Lent was the
period of preparation for baptism. It was forty days long
because that was the length of time Jesus spent fasting
and resisting temptation in the wilderness and it involved
teaching, prayer and fasting. Gradually it became the
custom for all Christians to eat less and pray more for the
forty days before Easter and so the season of Lent began.
By the Middle Ages Lent was an important time in the
church, special prayers had been written and the fasting
had lots of rules – did you know that rabbits qualified
as fish for the purpose of fasting? (People were allowed
to eat fish on fast days but no meat so some clever clogs
reclassified rabbit as a fish so that those who lived inland
could get some protein in their diet!). The problem with
all the rules was that it made it difficult for hardworking
people to stick to and that is something that I suspect
would have irritated Jesus who had some hard words for
the Pharisees who followed the rules to the letter while
ignoring the point of them.
In recent times Christians have become much less
organized in their Lenten discipline, some do not change
their diet at all, while others cut out the chocolate or red
wine. I have heard calls to return to the giving up of meat
for environmental reasons as well as eating more simply
and cheaply and giving the money saved to the poor.
I do not think it really matters to God what you give up for
Lent. We are blessed with such a variety of good food that
I do not believe God intended for us to starve ourselves.
The important bit, that has often got lost over time,
is the prayer.
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Church Services
Holy Communion
service times are:
9.15am on Sundays and
10am on Wednesdays
at St James the Apostle,
Milnrow.
11am on Sundays and
10am on Thursdays at
St Thomas, Newhey.
Ash Wednesday
2nd March:
10am Holy Communion
with the imposition of
ashes at St James.
7pm Holy Communion
with the imposition of
ashes at St Thomas.
Mothering Sunday
27th March:
Holy Communion will
be at the usual times.