FR JULIAN'S WEEKLY BLOG
02/03/25
​Here we are, on the threshold of Lent. I wonder what it means to us? For clergy it certainly means extra services and groups! But maybe for others, Lent may seem like a long stretch of doom and gloom with extra things to do or to get out of and a perpetual air of enforced solemnity. Certainly, the services are less joyful, the music more sombre, and our observance of prayer, fasting and giving more acute.
Jesus tells us not to appear miserable as we fast. Fasting is, of course, an all-year round discipline. We should fast before receiving Holy Communion, and we ought to fast during the week, perhaps on Wednesdays and certainly on Fridays. Along with prayer and almsgiving, regularity is the basis of being disciples. That is why we refer to our Lenten adjustments as a ‘discipline’.
Discipline seems to be a naughty word these days. We may complain about how discipline at school isn’t like it was in our day, but if we equate discipline with beatings and other forms of punishment; if we regard discipline as a negative, prohibitive thing, then we are never going to grow in our faith. It is through the disciplining of ourselves that we can allow the Christ to grow in us, and that is a purpose of Lent. Look on Lent as a positive, productive period, not one of misery and woe.​
23/02/25
This year’s Lent group (starting on 6 March) will be looking at the Creed. 2025 is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea which determined the Nicene Creed. The Council was called to counter two main heresies at the time: Arianism and Pelagianism. Today we might think that there is no great significance; it was a long time ago. But old sins cast long shadows, and aspects of both those heresies are still with us today, and we must be able to refute them.
Arius (4th century) held that Jesus was a human being who was selected to be filled with God. It is not that long since Christmas, when we heard St John proclaim that ‘in the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God’; Jesus is the Word, of course. Pelagius echoed others in saying that when humanity was expelled from the Garden because of their sin, that did not result in a separation from God - that means there is no need for redemption, again only possible through a divine Christ.
You may think that this is just arguing with words, but some Christians, and many others who indulge in what is a ‘pick and mix’ attitude to belief, do not appreciate the significance of such views which are totally contrary to Christian doctrine. The Creed is just as important today and we should under-stand it and ensure that we proclaim it, and in so doing shame the devil.​