Live Lent
Embracing Justice: a 40-day challenge

Author Isabelle Hamley
Publisher CHP £1.99 (10-pack £17.50; 50-pack £75)
Format pbk
ISBN 9781781402597

This small companion volume to Isabelle Hamley’s substantive book, Embracing Justice, is designed for individuals or groups to follow the theme of seeking Christian justice daily (Monday-Saturday) during Lent, using carefully selected Bible passages, short reflections and simple prayers. It will be accompanied by daily postings on social media, each day from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, with free video and other digital resources from www.churchofengland.org/livelent.

Reviewed by ELIZABETH STEPHENSON

Lenten devotion

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book, 2022

Embracing Justice

Author Isabelle Hamley
Publisher SPCK, £10.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9780281086542

Isabelle Hamley has the highly important, but perhaps unenviable, job of being theological adviser to the Church of England’s House of Bishops. Unsurprisingly, there is thus a lot of very sound theological teaching in her latest book, which should certainly engage – not only bishops and other ministers – but also lay members throughout the church, across all levels of Christian experience and traditions. It is a comprehensive and plain-speaking call for social justice in all its forms, at a time when the world-wide pandemic has created new and disturbing levels of injustice. Embracing Justice deserves a wide audience, and makes an ideal read for Lent for several reasons.

First, it explains with biblical examples from the early chapters of Genesis to the Gospels and the writing of St Paul what justice means to God and therefore why it must be important to Christians. There is particular power in the author’s exposition of the exodus from Egypt, with resonances of liberation theology. And – in a beautiful concluding chapter on Holy Communion – we are reminded of the physical reality, as well as the symbolism, behind the breaking and sharing of bread and drinking wine together. This is summed up in one especially powerful sentence: ‘The simplicity of bread and wine is an antidote to an imagination that justifies giving much to some and little to others, banquets for some and hunger for others.’

Embracing Justice uses powerful narratives and stories – sometimes shocking ones, for example on exploitation and abuse – to move us from complacency to compassion. I was jerked from my own indifference when I read the author’s objective but graphic summary of the ongoing conflict in South Sudan, where in the five years between 2013 and 2018, civil war cost 400 000 lives and displaced 2.5 million people, although few headlines were generated in the west. When we look closely at our broken, unequal and violent world, home and abroad, we yearn to do something about the glaring lack of justice.

At the end of each chapter there are questions for discussion and pointers for prayer and reflection, allowing for the book’s use as a powerful Lent-long course with home- or church-based discussion groups. Reading it alone is also salutary and valuable. However it is used, this book has the potential to show how each of us can more fully reflect the justice, mercy and compassion of Jesus Christ in our everyday lives.

Reviewed by ELIZABETH STEPHENSON

Lenten devotion

Keeping Lent and Easter

Author Leigh Hatts
Publisher DLT £9.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9780232533378

Subtitled, ‘Discovering the rhythms and riches of the Christian seasons’, this is a very well researched book about the traditions that surround the key events from Lent to Easter. From Pancakes to the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, the practices and ceremonies that have developed to show the truths of the Gospel are painstakingly documented. I consider this would be a most useful book for ministers who take Primary school assemblies, especially in Church schools. It links the ceremonies and rituals to the biblical stories of Holy Week and beyond in a way that will be very helpful if you are preparing a sermon or some liturgy or fresh expression. The author has been able to explain the meaning and origin of some of the church’s most obscure ideas. One of the strengths of this book is that it does not just talk about British traditions but explains international ones as well. It also contains suggestions for suitable hymns and prayers to match the seasons. This is an invaluable reference book to be consulted and drawn upon.

Reviewed by CAVAN WOOD

Lenten devotion

Reflections for Lent – 16 April 2022

Author Rowan Williams, Philip North and others
Publisher CHP £4.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781781402764

This slim book will prove a fine companion for the discipline and rhythm of daily Morning Prayer during Lent 2022. Its value is principally in the sustained high quality of the individual thoughts of the experienced, wise church leaders who have contributed. Their writing is uniformly superb. There is an outstanding introduction from Mark Oakley who has provided a written sermon – ideal for Ash Wednesday – entitled: ‘Lent – justifying within the self’. He uses the Renaissance painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ‘The fight between carnival and Lent’ to illustrate how many Christians experience the tension and paradox of impulses during Lent – a constant battle between holy desire and worldly influences.

The core content of the book comprises (Monday-Saturday) daily reflections from Bishops Philip North, Rachel Treweeke, Christopher Herbert, and Canon Angela Tilby. Most of their reflections relate to the Old Testament daily lessons, which this year are dominated by the later chapters of Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus. And so, we journey through Lent with Joseph and his brothers, and later Moses and Aaron and their people. Collectively these reflections provide a helpful theological guide to that long transitional period when the chosen people of God sojourned in Egypt. The climax of the book, however, comes from the contributions by Rowan Williams, who takes us through the spiritual perplexities of Holy Week. He has given succinct but powerful original thoughts which show that the spiritual wisdom of our former Archbishop is undiminished in retirement.

Finally, the book also contains helpful advice on how to build daily prayer into our lives from Rachel Treweeke; and a guide to Lectio Divina from Archbishop Stephen Cottrell. This book is warmly recommended. Although slightly expensive for its size, it is full of gems from a series of fine authors.

Reviewed by ELIZABETH HOGG

Lenten devotion

Sharing the Easter Story

Author Sally Welch
Publisher BRF £8.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781800390980

Sally Welch leads us through Lent from reading, to living the gospel. In her introduction, she explains how we might share the Easter story as individuals, or as a group. She also offers a study structure that might be used by a group from opening prayer, discussion, forum, reflection, plenary and through to a closing prayer. Her seven weeks take us through repenting, forgiving, hoping, trusting, sacrificing, loving and changing. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, each daily bible reading is followed by the author’s reflection, then she offers some questions for discussion or for self-examination: questions such as ‘Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks. Who do you trust and why? Do you find it easy or difficult to trust God?’ Each session ends with a closing prayer appropriate to that day’s subject.

Reading and praying my way through this beautiful Lent book has helped me to focus more deeply on my personal faith as well as understanding more about how God has been, and still is, at work in me and the world around me. I have been made to examine my own human frailties and sharing together in a group would help me understand more about myself and those with whom I share. In her epilogue the author gives us some final reflections such as: ‘What have I learned about myself during this Lenten period?’ and ‘How might I share all that God means to me – and all that he could mean to others?’ Are you brave enough to take on this loving Lenten challenge?

Reviewed by SUE PIPER

Lenten devotion