As the Season of Lent comes to an end and the glory that is Easter approaches, I’d like to take you back to the Diocese of Olympia in 1914 and some thoughts expressed by Bishop Frederic W. Keator in the newsletter entitled simply, The Diocese of Olympia.
Bishop Keator wrote that Lent is the season which the Church sets aside when “all her people are asked and urged to look into their lives, to the end that they may know whether they are growing better or worse; that they may put away all hurtful things, and gain a new vision of and take a new hold upon all helpful things… But if there were any question as to the real value of Lent, we might settle it, each one for himself, by simply realizing what is a perfectly obvious fact in all the experience of our lives – the fact that in everything that goes to make up our lives, our work and our play, there is a need to stop and start over again. The very routine of our lives tend to get into a rut, even our ideals are apt to grow dim and hazy. We need to get a new vision of our ideals, – in order that we may make a fresh start, and with a new strength and purpose begin to push forward again to the attainment of our ideals…
…Lent is certainly one of the most practical and helpful seasons of the Christian year. If it does not prove so the failure will be either because we do not use it or use it amiss. The right use does not consist in the mere taking upon us of additional religious duties, and the mere performance of extra religious observances. All this has only to do with the outside. The right use of Lent has chiefly to do with the inside. The self-denial and self-discipline which properly belong to this season have to do with the questions of self-mastery. In our life, and in every department of our lives, we ought to want to know whether we are masters of “things,” or “things” are really the masters of us. Lent is the testing time. Let us not forget that what we do in the matter of keeping Lent is after all only the means to an end and not the end itself.”
Diane Wells
Archivist and Records Manager
dwells@ecww.org
