ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

The inspiration for this short-term asceticism came from the popular philosopher, Alain de Botton who has just published a book called "Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion."

Unlike some of the more strident apostles of atheism, whose attitude to faith seems fuelled by so much hatred that they can see nothing good in it, de Botton recognises that it has something to teach unbelievers about life as it should be lived; things which he believes our society and its educational and cultural institutions are failing to do.

His underlying theme is a very Ash Wednesday one: an awareness of human childishness,

"We are all in the end rather infantile, incomplete, unfinished, easily tempted and sinful."

This is not St. Augustine holding forth on original sin or John Calvin on total depravity, but our young philosopher.

So, he sets about identifying and rescuing some of the values that religion can teach us: among them, the generation of a feeling of community, the promotion and inculcation of kindness, the development of habits of self-discipline which will moderate our greed and cupidity, and the need to identify people of virtue that we can look up to: saints as we would call them.

He plunders religious traditions for disciplines and practices that could be followed with profit by people who have no desire to join church, mosque or synagogue.

Forty years or so ago when Fr. Kenneth Leech was working at St. Anne's, Soho, he wrote that in those days of spiritual exploration, the ransacking of eastern religions, the pursuit of ecstasy through drugs, the last place most seekers would turn to for enlightenment on the spiritual path would be their parish church. That sweeping generalization was not universally true but there was enough truth in it to hit home.

A good many Christians had abandoned spirituality and prayer in favour of activism of one kind or another; the" work of God", that is worship and prayer, in favour of social action, therapy or ecclesiastical management. This is not to say that any of these things are not necessary, but that, divorced from their roots in the Church's spiritual life, they soon run out of steam.

Devotees of Sunday evening's "Call the Midwife" have been shown a glimpse of a Catholic Anglicanism of a much grittier, and at the same time more generous, variety than its usual gin and lace image. Women religious and parish clergy unafraid to get their hands dirty amidst the poverty of the East End. But they are also shown at their prayers.

In fact the nuns sing so beautifully because the voices are supplied by two members of our choir: Mhairi Ellis and Katie Cooper. I don't imagine the nursing Sisters of St. John the Divine had much time between breach births and preeclampsia in the slums of Poplar to have much time for polishing their plainchant.

The tide has turned thankfully, and Christians have begun to rediscover treasures left neglected on retreat house book shelves: meditation and silence, the daily office, retreats and spiritual reading, spiritual direction and confession, the Christian year with its rhythm of feast and fast, the communion of saints with its living examples of the Christian life. Even some atheists have noticed.

All that is true, but the business of re-establishing such half-forgotten or neglected disciplines and practices is not the work of a day or even forty days, but of a lifetime: a vital lesson for a generation raised on the quick fix.

As de Botton has realised, repetition has something vital to teach us:

"..while Christianity gave us parables and timetables and repetition on a massive scale, secular education relies on one-off lectures at the age of 20, and a secular culture infuses us with extravagant assumptions about our worth and prospects."

The introduction to the liturgy of Ash Wednesday summons us to a "careful keeping of these days", so that we might "take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the Gospel, and so grow in faith and in devotion to our Lord." So, the Church invites us "the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word."

Here at All Saints, the clergy of the parish will be taking turns at Sunday Evensong to preach sermons on these four themes:

We will be preaching to ourselves as well as to you. Of course, we do not have to wait until we have heard the sermon to start any and all of these.

Among us there will be those have been practicing some or all of these for many years; others will only just be starting or thinking about starting, or about starting again. But all of us, veterans or novices, are reminded by tonight's liturgy with its ashes, that we need the opportunity which Lent gives us to go deeper. Lent is given to us, not that we might feel miserable and despairing about ourselves - "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return" - but that being realistic about ourselves we might discover the opportunity to be open to the grace of God working through the processes of these means of grace to build the habits and virtues of life as it is meant to be in the likeness of Christ.

We might fear that too close a self-examination might reveal that our faith is pretty thin, but even if that is the case, we can still pray, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief"; and we can take heart from the old adage, that if we would be Christian, we should do what Christians do. The practices of faith can instil faith in us.

De Botton's attempt to borrow the practices of religion without the faith has been tried before - but the attempts ended in failure. Can these things be sustained over the long term without faith? That must be the subject of another sermon. In the meantime, as believers, people of faith, we can be thankful to Mr. de Botton for reminding us of the value of our disciplines and take them seriously.