February 18 – April 5, 2025

Lent is a time of preparation.  For more than a thousand years Christians have spent the six weeks before Easter in special study, prayer, and fasting in order to be prepared for the most holy day of the church year – Easter Day.

There are lots of ways to observe the season of Lent. Many people give up indulgences, some add a spiritual discipline or commit to a special activity in the spirit simple living, prayer, penance, and almsgiving.

Saint Mark’s has a variety of resources and activities to help you observe Lent, including special music offerings, programming for both adult and children’s Sunday morning formation classes,  and resources for meditation and faith at home.

Here is some of what we are doing this Lent.

Prayer, Reflection and Bible Study

Many people add daily prayers, Bible reading or time for reflection to their schedules during Lent. Prayers can be added at the beginning of the day, at noon, in the early evening or at the end of the day. 

In the arched bookcase in the parish hall you can find the following resources to use at home:

Forward Day by Day which is a small book of daily short reflections on the daily office readings.

A booklet of theological reflections – one for each week of Lent.

A booklet of short prayer services to use at home.

40 Stories from Matthew Every Christian Should Know.  This is a list of the stories in Matthew, the Gospel our Sunday morning readings are from this year.

This year the Adult Formation focus is Using the Book of Common Prayer as a basis for Spiritual Life.  There is a booklet with instructions on Morning and Evening Prayer.

We will be doing Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings at 5:30 p.m. in the chapel. 

This will begin on February 25.

Adult Formation

Adult Formation will be exploring how to use the Book of Common Prayer as a basis for spiritual life.

Adult Formation meets on Sunday mornings at 9:30 in the parish hall.  The sessions are recorded.  The recordings can be found on the Adult Formation page of the website.

Quiet Morning
We will have a Lent Quiet Morning on Saturday, March 14. 

We will gather in the Canterbury Center at 9 a.m. for Morning Prayer.  There will be 3 reflections through the course of the morning with space in between for individual reflection.

We have some basic art supplies, but bring your journal, art supplies, headphones or whatever else helps you enter into a spiritual space.

The morning will end at noon with noonday prayer.

Lent Madness

Lent Madness is a competition of Saints. It is a tournament, like March Madness. Each day during Lent there is a contest between two saints. Anyone can go to lentmadness.org and vote for their favorite saint in the contest.

Saint Mark’s is having a Lent Madness pool. All you have to do is fill out a bracket and submit it along with $5 to Pastor Vicki by February 17.

The winner of the Saint Mark’s pool will get to decide where to donate the pool. You can find brackets in the parish hall in the arched bookcase.

Lent ends with Holy Week and Easter.

Holy Week Service Schedule:

Palm Sunday – March 29 –  8 & 10:30 a.m.

Maundy Thursday – April 2 – 7:30 p.m.

Good Friday Stations of the Cross – April 3 – Noon

Good Friday Service – April 3 – 7:30 p.m.

Great Vigil of Easter – April 4 – 7:30 p.m.

Easter Sunday – April 5- 9 & 11 a.m.