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Lent 2026

18 February 2026 09:30

Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday

There are opportunities to mark the beginning of Lent with particular liturgies and devotional actions. On Shrove Tuesday:

  • 5pm Max will be available for private confessions
  • 5.30pm pancake party
  • 6.30pm liturgy for Shrove Tuesday including making ash

Confession is associated with Shrove Tuesday so that we are able to use Lent to draw near to God without guilt or fear of punishment.

On Ash Wednesday there will be Eucharists at 9.30am and 7pm which will include the rite of imposition of ashes. In the evening, there will be music from the choir, including Farrant’s Hide Not Thou Thy Face and Humperdinck’s Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep.

Daily Reflections

Daily reflections from the Church of England include a prayer, bible verse, reflection and challenge on the theme of ‘draw near: life-giving habits for Lent’. These are available:

  • as a printed booklet at £3 (from Max)
  • as a daily email or WhatsApp message (register online)
  • through the ‘Everyday Faith’ app (download now)

Archbishop’s Lent Book

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book is Dancing to the Heartbeat of God, which offers short reflections about faith and witness from different contributors from all around the Anglican Communion. We will not discuss this directly during Lent, but it will help to provide some wider context and further reading if you are interested.

Soup and Discussion

All are invited to St Mary’s, Haverhill on Wednesday lunchtimes at 12pm for discussion over soup. We will use our own version of the Lent book, which offers short reflections from our link dioceses of Kagera, Biharamulo and Lweru in the Anglican Church of Tanzania, taken from posts and reflections made by a group who returned to Kagera with the bishops who visited Suffolk in January this year. A printed booklet of these reflections and photographs is available at £5 from Max.

Charitable Giving

We will collect donations this Lent for our link dioceses. This will help to support the work of the church in enabling communities in developing sustainable, life-giving practices. The church serves communities in one of the poorest, most rural and isolated areas of the country, and is a vital lifeline for much of the population. In particular, the Church and Community Mobilisation Process helps young people to have the courage and develop the skills to start small businesses and change the mindset of dependency prevalent in many of these small communities.