Prayers and Poems for Lent
From Amy Bratton
New Leaf Writing Collective’s Contributing Editor
I came across this poem by Madeleine L’Engle and it resonated with my soul. Lent this year has been unusual and I have been feeling rather contrary in a desire “to eat when I would fast,” as L’Engle says. Yet, I hear the peace in this poem when the voice follows the impulse to respond to the call of those around them, despite the discipline that would be expected in Lent. It’s that peace of knowing I am in just the right place and responding to the world in the right way that I long for when I lean into disciplines like fasting and silence.
For Lent, 1966
By Madeleine L’Engle
It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.
It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.
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