Introducing Lent

During this Lenten season, we are focused on the theme of baptism – Fount of Every Blessing. This theme has deep connections to the practices of the early church, in which Lent was instituted as a time of intensive preparation for all those seeking baptism and membership in the Christian community.  On Easter morning – or, more properly, at the Saturday Easter Vigil – it was a joyous celebration of baptisms, professions of faith and new members in the family of God.

Since then, Lent has been used by the church as a time of preparation and discipline in many ways, not just those associated with baptism.  We live in a busy hectic world, where advertising, employers, nations and families all work together to tell us what sort of people we are.  As Christians, we choose to remember who we are in the waters of baptism. We are to find our identity as the fount of every blessing.