February 18th, 2026
Ash Wednesday

Lent is upon us. Despite its reputation, it is our great season of opportunity—of spiritual opportunity. It is the one chance we get, barely ten percent of each year we are given in this life, to intentionally address the health of our relationship with God—and with God’s hope for how we will live the life that has been given to us.

To make the most of Lent takes a seriousness of spiritual purpose that the culture around us does not encourage—let alone reward. The combined force of social media’s snares and consumerism’s lures powerfully distract or effectively anesthetize us from the health of our souls. Lent gives us an invitation—gentle, gracious, and patient—to live differently, and in deeper awareness, for a short time. 

Accepting that invitation does not require an extensive religious résumé or knees calloused from fervent prayer. It simply takes making a plan—a simple plan—and doing your best to keep it for the forty days of this season. Avoid the temptation of taking on heroic spiritual feats; focus instead on something you know you can do, with ten or fifteen minutes, every day. (Think of it, perhaps, as a spiritual Duolingo.) 

The old tradition of Lent centers on giving up something—of setting aside a routine, a habit, an indulgence, in order to make more space for God. In the days in which we live, however—days in which it feels as though we are all losing the trustworthy values and the order-preserving institutions we have treasured—I am not sure that taking on yet more sacrifice is a choice likely to yield any spiritual fruit. 

Instead, I offer the thought that your plan should have four simple parts: 

Pray. 
One of the true gifts of the Anglican tradition of which we are a part is the distillation of the routine of prayer lived by monastic communities into forms accessible to anyone. These are the “Daily Office” liturgies in the front of the Prayer Book—Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline. 

Choose just one—the shortest and perhaps easiest is noonday prayer, which you can pray silently over lunch—and plan to spend time with it at the same time each day for forty days. If you get distracted, don’t worry; just try to pick it up again the next day. I find the website venite.app, provided by the Forward Movement ministry, to be a wonderful help in my own discipline of daily prayer. 

Read. 
Find a book to read that will give you spiritual sustenance. Whether you read it, listen to it, or download it on a tablet, find a little time each day to consider (and pray with) some ideas that stretch your soul. My own book for lent is Omri Boehm’s Radical Universalism, a short study of the deep importance of the idea of the dignity inherent in each person—a distinctively Christian idea, subversive when first set loose on the world that developed into the fundamental value of the essential equality (egalité) of all people that shaped the Western world.  

Rest. 
Living in these days is exhausting. The stresses of the world, the confusion of the upheavals in institutions that have preserved peace and the rule of law, the polarization of our societies—all of it is draining and enervating. We cannot be fully present to God’s presence in our Lent if we do not first take time to create distance from the things that sap our energy, our hope, and our attentiveness. 

Spiritual rest can take a variety of forms. It can be a moment set aside for silent meditation each day—even just three minutes. It can be simply creating a discipline of a regular sleep pattern. It can be a time devoted to walking, or simply being outdoors, on a regular basis—perhaps two or three times a week. Whatever form it takes, take your rest seriously. 

Join. 
Finally, make a point in these weeks ahead to join in just one offering the church sets before you for keeping this season. It might be volunteering for a new ministry in. your church. It might be joining the Europe-wide weekly morning prayer via Zoom every Wednesday in Lent, where we’ll hear lay preachers from across the Convocation. Or it might be some act of service inspired by your faith in the world beyond the church. Our faith is personal, yes, but it can never be private; Christ’s design for his disciples is that they find and follow their faith in community. 

Brother David Steindl-Rast, an Austrian–American Benedictine monk who will become a centenarian later this year, has helpfully described Lent as a time not of giving up things but of setting things in order, preparing the house of our souls for the joy of receiving a guest—the coming of the resurrected Christ at Easter. The pathway to this joy can only be paved, not with arduous discipline, but with the practice of gratitude; “it is not joy that makes us grateful, it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” Our walk along this path can be supported and strengthened by prayer, by reading, and by rest. So accept the invitation of Lent—and sweep out the house to prepare for the joy to come. 

See you in church, 

The Right Reverend Mark Edington
Bishop in Charge
The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe