Lent and Easter 2021

Ash Wednesday (17 Feb) marks the start of the Lenten season.

Lent is traditionally a 40-day fast — a reference to the time Jesus spent being tempted in the desert.

It is a time when we can prepare our hearts for the solemn remembrance of Jesus’ death.

It concludes and is followed by the Easter Sunday celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

The six-week period (excluding Sundays) is dedicated to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for the great celebration of Christ’s Paschal Mystery in the Easter Triduum.


Easter Broadcasts

Faith and Hope for Spring 2021- the BBC's programming includes a live radio service with Cardinal Vincent Nichols at 7am tomorrow, Good Friday, on all local BBC radio stations.


On BBC 1 on Easter Sunday 11am, Pope Francis will deliver his Easter Message and Blessing Urbi et Orbi - to the city and to the world. live from Rome. Please particularly share this with friends and family who are unable to access Mass in person or online at present.

BBC Easter Programming

Watch the Family Mass

Celebrated by Fr Peter Weatherby of the Parish of St Mary and St Thomas More, Cannock, and featuring weekly school shout outs!

Lent Resources and Retreats

Lent Reflections with the Diocesan Evangelisation Team

Paul and Natalie would like to invite you to a series of online Lent reflections beginning on 19 February from 1.30-2.30pm, each Friday for six weeks.

The Friends of the Holy Land have produced a beautiful resource made up of poems, reflections, scripture readings and images, accompanying Jesus through his Passion, Death and Resurrection. Contributions come from Christian leaders in the Holy Land, representing many Christians struggling at this time of lockdown.

If you would like to join us on this journey, please contact Natalie for the Zoom codes at [email protected]

While a copy of the book is not necessary to take part in these reflections, we would still encourage you to support Christians in the Holy Land by buying a copy. In addition, the book contains a further nine reflections which can be read between the arranged meetings.

Knowing Jesus: Lent Online Retreat 2021

Organised by the Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Glasgow

Walk with us through Lent and Easter and really come to understand and love Jesus. We will ponder Gospel stories, reflect on their meaning and see how startlingly relevant Jesus is to living a truly human life in the 21st Century.


Follow the Lent Retreat on the Jesuits in Britain social media channels: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

"Be Drawn to Christ"

Lenten Retreat hosted by the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, Oxford - 17 February to 24 March 2021

From earliest times Christianity has celebrated its sensitivity towards the redemptive work of Christ in its liturgy. The season of Lent is that liturgical season calling powerfully to each Christian to renew the gift of baptism into Christ’s death so as to live anew by the power of his resurrection.

Christians journey 40 days and nights imitating Jesus’ desert experience. It is a season when the Christian community responds to the call to trust God more intentionally in a spirit of togetherness.


Bible Society presents The Lent Encounter

A brand new, 40-day experience called The Lent Encounter. It’s completely free – all you have to do is sign up. You’ll receive an email each day featuring Bible verses, beautiful and inspiring images, video reflections and practical challenges.


Bible Society present NEW spoken word films for Easter. Dai Woolridge has delivered a stunning two-part spoken word retelling of Jesus’ final days through the eyes of Peter. Brilliantly performed, both videos pack a serious emotional punch. Prepare to be moved!

Musical Resources

Virtual retreats from OneLife Music

God Who Speaks

The national Scripture campaign led by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales and Bible Society continues through 2021.

April Focus - Easter Glory

Lent at Home

DOWNLOAD Lent activities poster

DOWNLOAD Holy Week poster

Lent and Easter resources presented by Bible Society

The Poet's Gospel: A Lenten Pilgrimage

Lenten Retreat: Finding Hope in Scripture

CAFOD

Our Lent 2021 resources help young people to pray, learn and fundraise in Lent.
We're asking schools to Walk for Water. Your sponsored walks and other fundraising will help people like Abdella in Ethiopia who walks ten hours a day for water.

Lent Appeal


Family Fast Day

The Global Catholic Movement

Invites you to 'Global Healing'. This Lent, we are inviting YOU to join us for a series of reflective evenings with inspiring speakers, prayer and discussion, using the film-based resource 'Global Healing'.

These engaging documentaries will inform and challenge people to respond to Pope Francis’ call to Care for Our Common Home. Suitable for all who are concerned about what is happening to our world and who want to take action.

Six Thursdays from 18 February – 25 March 2021, 7.30pm – 8.30pm.



St John Henry Newman: Thoughts on Lent

Sprinting to Sainthood

St John Henry Newman writes to his friend William Copeland on Ash Wednesday, 14th February 1866: “Your Christmas Turkey was wonderful – but time passes so quick, it is now a matter of history.  We are steaming to Easter, and it will be upon us before we know where we are.” (Letters and Diaries XXII, p155).

Newman recognised that Lent invites us to live out the wisdom of reflecting before acting.  We should acknowledge the sinful consequences of not doing so, in the past and the present.  He taught that the penances we choose help us to re-assess our targets, in order to more faithfully live out the responsibilities we inherited through Baptism and Confirmation, to be missionary disciples:

A true Christian, then, may be defined as one who has a ruling sense of God’s presence within him…so that he habitually realises that all his thoughts, all the first springs of his moral life, all his motives and his wishes that all that I in him should be bare to God. (Parochial and Plain Sermons V, 16).

For forty days we are in ‘spiritual circuit training’, with the goal of joining St Peter on his morning run to Christ’s tomb.  So that we can experience, with him, as Pope Francis states: “the beginning of resurrection in his heart” and, our own too.  We do this by following the words of St John Henry as our daily work-out guide:

We cannot change ourselves; this we know full well, or, at least, a very little experience will teach us.  God alone can change us; God alone can give us the desires, affections, principles, views, and tastes which a change implies: this, too, we know. (Parochial and Plain Sermons V, 16).

by Fr Peter Conley

The Kingdom Warriors Group presents: Bible Study on the Gospel of St Mark

The Kingdom Warriors Group in Birmingham has organised an online Lent bible study led by Fr Stephen Pimlott starting on the 22nd February 2021 from 7-8pm via Skype.

It will focus on the Gospel of St Mark and everyone is warmly invited to join. To register, please contact George on 07870 153066 or at [email protected]

Birmingham Justice and Peace Lenten Retreat

Saturday 13 March 2021 on Zoom. 10.30am to 12noon (session 1) and 1pm to 2.30pm (session 2).

An invitation to explore our understanding of Being in Communion… with God, with each other and with all of creation. The retreat will be led by Sr Mary Deane.


Written resources

Deacon Sean Loone of Our Lady of the Wayside parish in Shirley, Birmingham, has written a new book.
‘Sharing in the Life of God - A Journey into the Real Meaning of Easter’ is available to buy now, with all profits going to charity.
This is Deacon Sean’s third book and its overwhelming message is one of optimism, hope and joy.


Friends of the Holy Land present a new prayer resource bringing the reality of Easter in the Holy Land to life. It will be used by the Evangelisation Team during online Lent reflections (see above).


Aid to the Church in Need

ACN Stations of the Cross for Lent 2021 are here! This year’s Way of the Cross focuses on ACN projects around the world and the suffering communities they support.

ACN Stations of the Cross

ACN Stations of the Cross for Children


Birmingham Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference

The Conference is live streaming a Lenten event on its YouTube channel, including the celebration of Holy Mass and times of praise, reflection, worship and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, on Saturday 27 February between 10am and 1pm at St Peter's Church, Bartley Green.

The theme of the event is 'Out of the Wilderness' with guest speaker Michelle Moran.


Stations of the Cross Podcast

A weekly Spotify podcast starting Friday 19 February, by Jenny Willis at Our Lady Queen of Peace, Worcester. Readings and prayers reflecting on the Passion of Jesus Christ and Pope Francis' letter Patris Corde for the Year of St Joseph.


Ignatian Scriptural Stations of the Cross

To pray at home, as a Lenten spiritual exercise.

It's a little different from what you might be used to! The Stations in this version, following an original suggestion of St.John Paul II, don't exactly match the 14 stations in your church building. They offer also a way of contemplating the Gospel scenes of each Station, or moment, of Jesus's journey to the Cross.

These Scriptural Stations of the Cross by Fr David Stewart SJ help us to pray with the Passion of Christ and journey with Jesus to the Cross.


Father Hudson's Care

Father Hudson’s Care has published resources to help children learn about Catholic Social Teaching by exploring the charity’s work with people in need across the Archdiocese. Children can also fundraise to support Father Hudson’s work or learn about the Stations of the Cross.

Good Shepherd Appeal - Father Hudson's Care


The God Who Speaks - Short Course on Mark's Gospel

Fr Paul Fitzpatrick at Sacred Heart in Henley has prepared a short course on the Gospel of Mark which comes out each week of Lent in the form of a downloadable two sided A4 which folds into a neat A5 format. All parishes, groups and individuals are welcome to use this material.

Mark's Gospel Course


Bible Timeline Course

A useful programme for parishes. An eight-week (April 7 - May 26, Wednesdays 7-8.40pm) online course exploring the timeline of the bible and its characters.

Sign up for the course


Good Friday Birmingham Ecumenical Service and Virtual Walk of Witness

Join us on our virtual Walk of Witness this year. An ecumenical 'walk' through Birmingham, reflecting on the Stations of the Cross.


Let us Dream – Easter Reflections

The Catholic Bishops' Conference Spirituality Committee, under the stewardship of Bishop Ralph Heskett, has produced a series of reflections based on the Holy Father’s book Let us Dream for individual and parish use.

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Author: Faye Fawcett

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