Lent Course 2026: Hear Our Prayers

The 2026 Lent Course for the Anglican Church of Paphos is entitled ‘Hear Our Prayers’. This course will last for five weeks and will be launched in the Parish on Ash Wednesday 18 February. We will meet on Tuesday mornings from 11.00 am to 12.15 pm at Saint Stephen’s, Tala, from 24 February to 24 March. Directions to Saint Stephen’s can be found here

The Season of Lent, for many people, provides an opportunity to practice some form of abstinence or to follow a less indulgent lifestyle – especially after the excesses of the Christmas season. For others, Lent is a time for ‘navel gazing’ and truthful honesty about the state of their moral, ethical, and spiritual lives. Lent, it seems to me, is as good a time as any to start looking a little closer at, and developing, your prayer life.

Imagine that your prayer life is a school and the ‘Prayer Ofsted Inspectors’ have just made a visit. What grade are they going to give you? Perhaps you think you might get an Outstanding. Perhaps you are someone whose prayer life is sorted, intimate, easy and life-giving. But my guess is that it probably isn’t. These five sessions are aimed at those whose prayer life would get perhaps a Requires Improvement from the inspection team. It’s for those who find prayer a struggle, who don’t quite know to begin, who feel guilty about prayer or who find themselves wondering what on earth they are doing when they pray.

‘Hear Our Prayers’ examines the prayer lives of five Old Testament figures. We’ll look at how they prayed, how that relates to the prayer life of Jesus and, in doing so, reflect on their approach and apply this to our own prayer lives.

Our first session will focus on Hannah and will be about personal prayer and then, in session two, in company with Elijah, we will think about how we can pray with greater ambition. Session three will be a bit different as, inspired by Ezekiel, we reflect on what we are actually doing when we pray and the cosmic dimension of our prayer lives. In session four, Esther will help us to reflect on how we pray communally and as part of the Church before in our final session on Daniel inspires us to be constant in prayer and set for ourselves a rhythm of prayer.

Handouts will be distributed on the day (be sure to bring a pen with you) and posted below for you to download if/when you are unable to join with us.

Each session is a stand alone topic, so don’t worry if you can’t make every week.

This is the opening and closing liturgy we’ll be using each week TBC

Hear Our Prayer Lent Course 2026 – Poster