18th February 2026

Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent. In these coming weeks leading to Easter, we are encouraged as Christians to search our souls; to reflect on what faith in Jesus Christ means for us, personally. How we use Lent is up to us; we could, of course, do nothing, with no spiritual benefit. Or we could use a planned daily programme like that kindly offered to us again this year by our friends at Westbury (see 13 February email ‘Lent booklet’, entitled ‘From Bethlehem to Jerusalem’); or we could, like many, choose a suitable book to guide your thinking.

This Lent I’ll be listening to tape recordings I made in 1981 from BBC’s radio’s thirteen-part series ‘Priestland’s Progress’, in which Gerald Priestland, BBC Religious Affairs correspondent, made ‘a personal journey through the Christian faith’. The programmes contain views from a host of Christians interviewed on basic Christian themes. Priestland was a Quaker, and a natural sceptic, choosing not to draw firm conclusions in many cases; he gathers the evidence, and leaves us to draw our own conclusions. The series caused a great stir at the time; the public responded by inundating the BBC with 22,500 letters, the vast majority positive and complimentary. An accompanying book was subsequently published, and I will read that to reinforce ideas in the tapes.

Priestland’s title, of course, echoes John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ of 1678, in which ‘Christian’ journeys to the Celestial City in an effort to be free of the difficulties of believing that beset him.

How are you going to ‘journey’ through Lent?

David Bell