Lent is a period of change and transformation. Not only do we look inwards at ourselves and seek to change our own habits in this season, but we patiently wait for the transformations which the Easter period promises. 

I am always struck by how this liturgical season of gradual transformation coincides with a season of rebirth; as the leaves unfurl and bulbs push through the earth, the air gets lighter and the days warmer. 

But this year change feels far less tangible, as our lives are suspended in lockdowns and isolation, and future plans are cautious and considered. We are acutely aware of the repetitiveness and inertia of our zoom-based, house-bound existences. Even the growth of the narcissus bulbs sitting on my windowsill seems to have slowed to an excruciatingly slow pace. 

One of the challenges of this Lent, for me, is to consider how this very repetitiveness can be transformative; perhaps in the repeated simplicity of saying the Jesus Prayer, or the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer. Behind this practice is the reassurance that in the repetitiveness of these words and deeds, and in this seemingly frozen social period, change and transformation are in fact happening. This echoes the belief of the Russian monastic Mother Maria Skobtsova, that everything can, and indeed must, be transformed. The seasons are progressing, the narcissus bulbs will eventually bloom, and the promise of Paschal transfiguration is not only a future hope, but the ground of our very being. 

James Roberts is a DPhil student in the Department of Theology and Religion, writing about the theology of Mother Maria Skobtsova (1891-1945).