Today is Shrove Tuesday, a day simultaneously associated with pancakes and confession of sin. It is also the day before Lent begins, with Ash Wednesday’s focus on repentance: a day of feasting before the fast begins. Today’s song, the final track from Page CXVI’s “Lent to Maundy Thursday”, is a beautiful reflection on the love and grace of God, a perfect way to prepare our hearts for the beginning of the Lent season. If you have enjoyed what you’ve heard of the album in the past week, it will be released any moment now. (Due to the vagaries of timezones, I am posting this before it hits the 4th of March in the US.) Go to the band’s website for updates on availability.
Here also is my final pre-Lent poem. I am looking forward to sharing more Lent reflections with you over the next forty days. God bless.
Shrove Tuesday
Shrivelled, riven, sick with sin
and grieved with griefs too deep, too dim -
I crawl, I climb, I cannot climb;
I call, my God, I call.
I love the Lord; He hears my cry
and drags me, dumb, out from the tomb;
my soul, my soul, destined for death -
He lifts, my soul, He gives...
Sunken, shriven, sick within
and barely breath left to breathe in -
my God, my God: I cry, You cry,
and save my soul from sin.
The Consolations of Writing 