This Lent, the Dean of Chelmsford, The Very Revd Nicholas Henshall, will lead a journey through the seven psalms, often called the Penitential Psalms.
These will be premiered each Sunday afternoon at 5pm on the Cathedral's Facebook page @chelmsfordcathedral with an opportunity to comment and discuss online with The Dean, throughout the recording.
The Psalms are an extraordinary treasure store of poetry and song which give voice to very human emotion. The Psalms give us words to praise God and express our deepest thanksgivings and desires. They also give us words to express human tragedy, to sound the darkest realities of our human experience. The Psalms give us permission to dance and sing in the Lord’s presence and to bring our most heart-breaking lament before the Lord.
The “Seven Psalms” have had a long association with the season of Lent. They bring together a diverse group of Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143) all of which are in different ways reflecting on the transformative role of lament in the life of faith. These psalms have a particular power to speak into our present context. They invite us to journey into the depths of the human experience and of the God we meet there – the God we know in Jesus Christ reaching out arms of mercy and assuring us of his love.
Each session will take either a single psalm from the seven, or two psalms together. We will read through them with some detailed commentary so we grow familiar with their structure and content. And then we ask ourselves what God is inviting us to notice in these timeless texts; where God is drawing our attention.
The booklet to accompany the series can be viewed or downloaded by clicking here.
Everyone is warmly welcome, and no prior knowledge of the Psalms is necessary.