{"id":193,"date":"2025-10-08T15:11:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianregency.com\/blog\/?p=193"},"modified":"2025-10-08T15:11:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:11:22","slug":"welcome-dear-feast-of-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/08\/welcome-dear-feast-of-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"“Welcome, dear feast of Lent”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Regency gentlemen and ladies were members of the Church of England, so most of them would \u2013 in some form, at least \u2013 have celebrated Lent, the forty days of fasting and repentance that are traditionally observed before Easter.<\/p>

\"Fire<\/a><\/div>\n

I love Lent. I rarely enjoy Lent. But I do love it. It is such a good tool in God\u2019s hands. I always learn, I always grow. But I often learn more from the places where I fail than the places where I succeed.<\/p>\n

Why Fast?<\/span><\/p>\n

I sometimes think the purpose of fasting is to make it clear to us what sinners we really are. Not in a defeating, accusing way (the way the Enemy would), but more the way tiredness reveals the two-year-old-ness of two-year-olds. In Lent, the voice you hear isn\u2019t the diabolical, \u201cwell what did you think you were, you scum?\u201d but the Fatherly, \u201cyou really are tired, aren\u2019t you, small one? Come and rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Detail from Michaelangelo Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus" (PD-Art|PD-old-100)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As C. S. Lewis once pointed out, our good moods often aren\u2019t, as we\u2019d like to suppose, evidence of our virtue, but evidence of our full bellies and our good health. Take away food or health or rest and you can see how weak you really are. But fasting, in its orderliness, reveals our weakness to us in a way we can stand. It doesn\u2019t destroy us because it is intrinsically linked to prayer, and so as soon as our weakness is revealed, there we are in the presence of our Father. And there our weakness isn\u2019t despair, it\u2019s joy, because He is ever ready to supply our lack. Praise God!<\/p>\n

Peace of Christ to you,<\/p>\n

Jessica Snell\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

P.S. the title quotation is from English poet George Herbert’s excellent poem “Lent”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Originally posted 2012-03-23 10:00:00. <\/small><\/p>

\"Listen<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Regency gentlemen and ladies were members of the Church of England, so most of them would \u2013 in some form, at least \u2013 have celebrated Lent, the forty days of fasting and repentance that are traditionally observed before Easter. I love Lent. I rarely enjoy Lent. But I do love it. It is such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessariley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}