Lent
Lent starts today.
Over the years I have had zero desire to participate in it.
Yet a couple of weeks ago when President Oaks released his video about Easter and the Easter season I have the impression that my family should try to observe Lent. I shook the impression off. I did not have a great desire to do something that seemed cringe and larpy.
A day or two later I was talking to my daughter and son-in-law and they said that they had been watching the video and had the impression that we as a family should participate in Lent.
So that’s what we’re doing.
The things we are giving up range from cheese to procrastination
We’re also trying to make it into not just a negative observance but also a positive observance by having one member of the extended family post a spiritual thought to the family chat each day.
John Mansfield
March 7, 2025
The Church of Jesus Christ giving recent emphasis to Easter leads to latter-day saints thinking about Christian observances connecting to Easter. Two years ago General Conference fell on Easter, hardly the first time that has happenned, but this time the Deseret New reported, “The mentions of Palm Sunday were striking. In fact, leaders mentioned that day 20 times on Sunday. That’s one more time than that exact term had been said in general conferences in the first 192 years of the gatherings.”
Recently, there has been attention given to how reverence in the sacrament service can be “joy-filled, and Christ-focused.” As I thought on that concern I considered that other than the sacrament bread and water themselves there is nothing representational in current chapels. A person enters and sees . . . nice wood trim, good sheetrock. From 1978 until 1981 my ward met in the Prince and Stewart chapel in Las Vegas. There was a large painting on a side wall of the chapel depicting Ether 3:13. The last time I visited that chapel, probably 1992, it was gone, and the different aspect of the paint under the space where it had hung marked its absence. We no longer had the faith to behold something hinted at.
Perhaps to add a focus on Christ to our chapels, in a simple, uncostly, uniform way that visitors will understand when they join us for Palm Sunday, Easter, and other services, there will be crosses mounted in those spaces. Or the Thorvaldsen-inspired line art logo.
John Mansfield
March 7, 2025
Conference fell on Palm Sunday in 2023, not Easter. I mistyped above. In 2026, Easter will be April 5. I wonder what that will be like compared to previous years. One hour of Conference “to allow additional time on Easter Sunday for worship with family and friends”?
E.C.
March 7, 2025
I’m prepping our Easter musical program, and will be including some of the more contemplative Lenten songs, at least as prelude to the meeting, but also in these weeks preceding Easter. There’s SO much good music that joyfully looks forward to the Resurrection.
Also, if you’re looking for a good way to see where other Christian traditions are coming from, I suggest reading Dante’s Purgatory, which is in my opinion the best part of his epic poem, despite the superficially gruesome penitents. It captures the feeling of Lent perfectly – a slowly burgeoning hope that Heaven is in reach, not through one’s own merit, but through Christ’s mercy.
G.
March 7, 2025
What a lovely recommendation
JM, something along the lines of the line art logo maybe in some kind of tasteful bas relief would be interesting