‘Of first importance’: turning towards the Paschal Mystery At the early Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday before Lent, 2022 I Corinthians 15:1-11 The season of Lent is approaching. This Fourth Sunday before Lent begins a series of weeks in which we ready ourselves to enter into Lent. The liturgy for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, tells us that we are called to mark Lent “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word”. It is right, then, that we ready ourselves, that we give time during these weeks to think about how we will observe Lent. But why? Why these Sundays before Lent, heralding the approach of the season? Why have forty days in the Spring of each year marked by prayer and abstinence, self-examination and the reading of Scripture? The answer is found in today’s Epistle reading, Saint Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had receive...
Old High - Burkean - clerk in holy orders