CMP Review 2026-02-19

February 19, 2026

There are many, many devotionals to choose from, but my favorite companion during the season of Lent is The Cloud of Witness by Edith Gell.

Yesterday Lent began for me when our Assistant Rector solemnly declared, “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent: by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and alms-giving; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

It would not necessarily seem to be a welcome invitation. Who wants to spend weeks with a focus on “self-examination and repentance”? Did not Charlotte Mason herself warn about the dangers of “morbid introspection”?

That is one reason I like having Edith Gell’s The Cloud of Witness in the weeks that lead up to Easter. Here I found this gem to accompany yesterday’s invitation:

Grieve not so much that sin

Hath found a stealthy passage to thy heart,
As now rejoice that Penitence hath tracked
Its subtle footstep there.

— W. Smith

And so I enter Lent not with grief but with joy. For repentance is a gift that leads to liberty.

@artmiddlekauff