The Church of England’s Lent theme for 2024, Watch and Pray invites us all to wait expectantly for God to meet us and sustain us through the storms and trials we all face. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus kneels in darkness in the Garden of Gethsemane. Though he pleads with his disciples, “Stay here with me … Watch and pray,” they all fall asleep, leaving him alone in his hour of deepest suffering. This Lent we are encouraged to draw on the wisdom of Black Spirituality, particularly the practice of “tarrying” (waiting) as a community to draw closer to Jesus and to each other. For each day of Lent, the Watch and Pray booklet offers a Bible verse, a short reflection, an idea for 'watching', and a prayer. It invites us to seek God in both familiar and unfamiliar places this Lent: in darkness and in quiet; in movement and migration; in the healing and transforming work of the Spirit; in the weeping of Holy Week and in the joy of Easter morning.

Carlton Turner is an Anglican priest and a Caribbean Contextual and Practical theologian. He is a tutor in Contextual Theology and Mission Studies at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham.