"Come and See"
Daily Meditations for Lent and Holy Week, Year B

Cynthia Caruso, a member of Trinity, Rutland, who is teaching this spring in New Mexico, has generously offered to share a series of daily Lenten meditations based on the lectionary readings. She wrote a similar series of Advent meditations for members of Trinity in 2008, and an earlier series will be published this year by Forward Movement.

To read the meditations online, click on the links below the introduction.

Congregations and individuals are welcome to print the meditations for free distribution only. Download a pdf file formatted for printing as a booklet on letter size paper.

Download a pdf file that can be easily read on a computer or printed.

To contact Cynthia Caruso, write to Anne Brown, abrown@dioceseofvermont.org.

Introduction

During Lent of 1994 my husband Jack, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer the previous fall, began a rapid descent to death.  As I watched Jack shrink, almost before my eyes, I felt that we were on the road to Jerusalem, going to be crucified with Jesus.  Jesus would rise again, but not my husband.  Ever since then, Lent has been impossibly difficult, and I have not kept Lent as I used to.  Last year I did keep Holy Week for the first time since 1994, attending worship at both my home church, Trinity Episcopal in Rutland, Vermont, and at Weston Priory, a Benedictine monastery 24 miles from Rutland. 

This year, thanks to Trinity’s new Priest-in-Partnership, Lee Crawford, who said to me, “It would be nice to have a booklet for Lent,” I have kept Lent for the first time in 14 years.  Twice.  Once in the writing, and now in the reading.  I didn’t think I could write 46 meditations, but I found that the writing was healing.  It brought me closer to my faraway friends at Trinity, and closer to the Jesus whose death seemed to coincide with my husband’s.

I offer these pieces to you, hoping that you will find them helpful as you and I walk the hard road to Jerusalem, crucifixion, and resurrection.  I will look for you along the way—and I hope you will look for me.  The one thing I know is that we will all finish the journey.  Not one of us will be lost.

Cynthia Caruso
February, 2009

Meditations for the Week of Ash Wednesday
Meditations for the Week of Lent 1
Meditations for the Week of Lent 2
Meditations for the Week of Lent 3
Meditations for the Week of Lent 4
Meditations for the Week of Lent 5
Meditations for Holy Week

Other Lent Resources

Episcopal Relief and Development 2009 Lenten Devotional: "Peace and Compassion to Heal a Hurting World." The devotional includes an adaptation of the Rev. Barbara C. Crafton’s Almost-Daily Emos and highlights the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), offering ways for parishioners to help achieve these life-saving goals, especially through Episcopal Relief & Development’s MDG Inspiration Fund.

Society of Saint John the Evangelist: Sermons on the Tuesdays of Lent.

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago has links to a variety of Lenten resources.

The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas has an online Lenten calendar with meditations corresponding to the daily and Sunday lectionaries written by clergy and lay persons from across the diocese. Bishop Gary Lillibridge begins with an audio meditation for Ash Wednesday. Each Sunday of Lent features an audio meditation from one of the current and past bishops.