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A Lent lived together, and hence ecumenical in spirit, is being promoted in the United Kingdom. “In the past explains Father Philip Scanlan, parish priest of St. Mary’s, at Loughborough, a town of 50,000 inhabitants in the English Midlands the emphasis was on renunciation, on what we decide not to do during Lent. Today we have a more positive approach: what can we do to draw closer to God? And this more positive approach is the result of dialogue with the Protestant churches. We are celebrating Lent with meetings with them and this is an important innovation in the last forty years, ecumenical dialogue during Lent”. The main protagonist of ecumenism in the UK is the association “Churches together in Britain and Ireland”. “For many Protestants the rite of Lent is a rediscovery”, explains the Methodist pastor, the Rev. Judith Maizel-Long, spokesperson of the association, “because this penitential period was abolished in the 17th century at the time of the Reformation and only rediscovered by the Church of England in the 19th century. Some Protestant churches have re-introduced it, while others continue not to observe it. Baptists and Methodists for example have re-introduced Lent only in the last twenty or thirty years. To this period also date the ecumenical meetings organized by “Churches together in Britain and Ireland” during the period of Lent; they are prepared from Christmas on. The representatives of the various churches meet together to decide on a theme to be discussed during Lent. The Pentecostal church, with some 600 churches throughout the United Kingdom, and some 55,000 members, continues, on the other hand, not to observe Lent. At the centre of the Catholic Lent in England and Wales is “Lent Fast Day”, a day of fasting promoted by CAFOD, the most important charity for humanitarian aid to the Third World of the Catholic Church. This key day will be celebrated on 10 March this year. “An enormous organizational effort involving all Catholic schools in England and Wales goes into it. It’s prepared weeks in advance”, explains the spokesperson of CAFOD, Nana Anto-Awuakye. “Our association prepares information packs which we distribute in each parish and school and in which it is precisely explained where the money collected during Lent Fast Day will end up”. The theme this year is water.
