Email subscribers will find it easier to access these weekly resources directly on the website, where readings are given in full along with additional video and music resources.
You can find the complete ENCOUNTERING GRACE resource for Lent 2026 here.
Reflections for Tuesdays in Lent
Tuesday 24th February
Tuesday 3rd March
Tuesday 10th March
Tuesday 17th March
Tuesday 24th March
Encountering Endings
Take five deep breaths and check-in with how you are feeling in body, mind and spirit. Take five more deep breaths and ask God to abide with you this Lent, and especially in this time today you have set aside for devotions.
In John 15, in preparing his disciples for the trauma of the Passion that lies ahead, Jesus explains this to them:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
Sit gently with this image for a few moments. And then give thanks repeating quietly, “Abide in me as I abide in you”.
On Tuesdays, we are drawn to the cross each week, in John 19.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
- This scene unfolds slowly, at the foot of the cross. Take time to notice who is standing there, and where they are placed.
- Jesus speaks only a few words but in what ways were they precious?
- In this moment, relationships are named and re-formed. What is ending here, and what is beginning?
- Jesus speaks of abiding in John 15; Simeon speaks of love and loss at the beginning of Jesus’ life in Luke 2; and at the cross Jesus entrusts others to one another. What stays with you as these three moments are held together?
- In the wilderness Jesus resists the temptation to dominate, impress, or coerce. How do you see those same refusals shaping the way he meets suffering and loss at the cross?
Take time to chat with Jesus about the things on your heart and mind today. You might like to say the Lord’s Prayer and use this collect:
God made known in the strength and vulnerability of birth, the joy and pain of motherhood, in nights of sleepless love, and inner ocean’s flow, in demands without number and questions without answer: give us gratitude for the women who carried us, for the carers who nurture us and for the chance to pass on life to others; through Jesus Christ, Mary’s Child. Amen
Close this time with a moment of quiet and stillness, recalling
I am the true vine
Sit gently with this idea for a few moments.
And then give thanks repeating quietly
“Abide in me as I abide in you”.