Lent is a season of turning again toward God. Year after year, the Church invites us to repentance, prayer, fasting and self-examination not as ends in themselves, but as means of returning to God. The present moment, marked by environmental degradation and climate uncertainty, Lent also calls us to reflect on another broken relationship, our relationship with God’s creation.
The Holy Bible reminds us that repentance (metanoia) is not merely private or inward. The prophet Isaiah consistently links faithfulness to God with care for the land and justice for the vulnerable. “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants,” Isaiah declares, “for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes”. In biblical imagination, sin has communal and ecological consequences.
Every Ash Wednesday confronts us with a stark truth: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words are not only about mortality; they recall our origin. In the book of Genesis, humanity is formed from the Adamah, the soil and animated by God’s breath. To remember that we are dust is to remember that we belong to the earth, not as masters, but as creatures within God’s good creation.
The Lenten journey through the wilderness deepens this insight. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness unfold in a place of vulnerability and dependence. The wilderness is not empty space; it is a living environment where Jesus learns obedience, restraint, and trust in God. In a climate-challenged world, Lent becomes a kind of wilderness training which teaches us how to live faithfully within limits and resist the temptation to turn stones into bread at the cost of creation.
The Anglican tradition has long emphasized right relationship held together through Scripture, tradition and reason; this includes restoring the right relationship with the Earth. Our baptismal covenant commits us to strive for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being. Increasingly, we recognize that human dignity cannot be separated from the health of land, water and ecosystems upon which life depends.
The Lenten disciplines invite us into this wider repentance. Fasting challenges habits of excess. Simplicity questions patterns of consumption. Almsgiving reconnects us with neighbours, human and more than human, who bear the cost of environmental neglect. These routines are not acts of self-denial for their own sake, but spiritual disciplines that create space for God’s restoring work.
The parishes in the Diocese of Niagara, situated in an area surrounded by fertile land, waterways, and diverse communities, have a particular opportunity during Lent to pay closer attention to their place. How we use energy, reduce waste, support local food systems, and protect water sources are not far-off concerns; they are expressions of Christian discipleship lived locally.
Lent then leads us to Easter, to the promise of resurrection and new creation. The resurrection of Christ affirms that God has not abandoned the world God loves. As we turn again to God this Lenten season, may we also turn toward the Earth with humility, gratitude, and care, trusting that in Christ, all things are being made new.
Turning Again to God, Neighbour, and the Earth
Lent is a season of turning again toward God. Year after year, the Church invites us to repentance, prayer, fasting and self-examination not as ends in themselves, but as means of returning to God. The present moment, marked by environmental degradation and climate uncertainty, Lent also calls us to reflect on another broken relationship, our relationship with God’s creation.
The Holy Bible reminds us that repentance (metanoia) is not merely private or inward. The prophet Isaiah consistently links faithfulness to God with care for the land and justice for the vulnerable. “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants,” Isaiah declares, “for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes”. In biblical imagination, sin has communal and ecological consequences.
Every Ash Wednesday confronts us with a stark truth: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words are not only about mortality; they recall our origin. In the book of Genesis, humanity is formed from the Adamah, the soil and animated by God’s breath. To remember that we are dust is to remember that we belong to the earth, not as masters, but as creatures within God’s good creation.
The Lenten journey through the wilderness deepens this insight. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness unfold in a place of vulnerability and dependence. The wilderness is not empty space; it is a living environment where Jesus learns obedience, restraint, and trust in God. In a climate-challenged world, Lent becomes a kind of wilderness training which teaches us how to live faithfully within limits and resist the temptation to turn stones into bread at the cost of creation.
The Anglican tradition has long emphasized right relationship held together through Scripture, tradition and reason; this includes restoring the right relationship with the Earth. Our baptismal covenant commits us to strive for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being. Increasingly, we recognize that human dignity cannot be separated from the health of land, water and ecosystems upon which life depends.
The Lenten disciplines invite us into this wider repentance. Fasting challenges habits of excess. Simplicity questions patterns of consumption. Almsgiving reconnects us with neighbours, human and more than human, who bear the cost of environmental neglect. These routines are not acts of self-denial for their own sake, but spiritual disciplines that create space for God’s restoring work.
The parishes in the Diocese of Niagara, situated in an area surrounded by fertile land, waterways, and diverse communities, have a particular opportunity during Lent to pay closer attention to their place. How we use energy, reduce waste, support local food systems, and protect water sources are not far-off concerns; they are expressions of Christian discipleship lived locally.
Lent then leads us to Easter, to the promise of resurrection and new creation. The resurrection of Christ affirms that God has not abandoned the world God loves. As we turn again to God this Lenten season, may we also turn toward the Earth with humility, gratitude, and care, trusting that in Christ, all things are being made new.
The official communications channel of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara.
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