CMP Review 2025-03-04

March 4, 2025

Today is known to many Christians as Shrove Tuesday, the last day of the church year before Lent. As the penitential season begins tomorrow with the Ash Wednesday service, I know I will be thinking about what an observance of Lent might look like today.

While Charlotte Mason wrote a wonderful Advent devotional, I have not been able to find a corresponding piece by her about Lent. However, in the April 1922 Parents’ Review, she did choose to publish a sermon by Claude Jenkins, a somewhat unusual professor and clergyman in the Church of England.

Jenkins’s sermon asks hard questions about Lent and its relevance for the Christian. I suspect his piece appealed to Miss Mason because in the end, he gives a prescription for Lent that seems highly compatible with her view of a living education (and a living faith).

If you are just now thinking of “giving something up,” or perhaps thinking about Lent for the very first time, I encourage you to read or listen to this vintage sermon by Claude Jenkins. It’s quite applicable for today, and gives us a sense of how Mason herself thought about this important time of year. You can find it here.

@artmiddlekauff