Approaching Lent

Coming from a liturgical church background, and only lately coming more and more to appreciate the power and beauty of the liturgical structure, I sometimes find myself at odds to explain this structure to my decidedly non-liturgical Christian friends. The liturgical seasons and the church year in general are particularly mystifying to them.

Thanks, then, to Cheryl of A Round Unvarnish'd Tale, for her beautiful explanation of the Lenten season and her church's tradition of "burying the Alleluias".

I can't but quote a stanza of the hymn her church uses for this rite:

Alleluia cannot always be our song while here below;
Alleluia our transgressions make us for a while forgo;
For the Lententide is coming, when our penitence is renewed.

Amen.