Lent with Lilias: The Way of the Sevenfold Secret
“. . . we can tell you of a road wherein we have found joy and peace
from the first step.”
~ Lilias Trotter (The Way of the Sevenfold Secret)
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Lent – the six-week period leading up to Resurrection Sunday – begins on Ash Wednesday. At its core, Lent is a time for Christians to reflect, repent, and pray as a way of preparing our hearts for Christ’s death and resurrection. It is a time to connect more deeply with God.
This year, Lilias Trotter Legacy will be turning to The Way of the Sevenfold Secret – arguably her magnum opus, written specifically for the Sufi mystics – as we journey towards the cross. In this book, Lilias Trotter masterfully lays out the Christian gospel as posed by the apostle John as the seven I AMS of Christ. For each element – Bread, Light, Door, Shepherd, Resurrection, Way, Vine – Trotter engages the reader’s heart and intellect, showing how Jesus Himself satisfies life’s basic longings . . . for satisfaction, illumination, access, leadership, life, progress, abiding. As Dr. Miriam Adeney states in her introduction to the Lilias Trotter Legacy 2023 edition, “Although [Trotter] wrote The Way of the Sevenfold Secret for her Sufi friends, the book speaks to every person who aches for something more.”
Lilias Trotter herself, in her preface to this book, writes these words: “. . . we can tell you of a road wherein we have found joy and peace from the first step. And this road does not depend on someone’s good works . . . this new and wonderful road is in the revelation of Jesus Christ to your spirit, for He is the One who has come into the world to bring us to God by means of His redemption, whereby He destroyed all the veils that separated us from Him . . . And our prayer for you is ‘that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.’ (Ephesians 1:17)”
If you have no other devotional plans for this Lenten season, we invite you to join us on this road. Each Sunday during Lent (plus Resurrection Sunday), we will post a blog on our website – as well as link that to our social media pages – with an introduction to the I AM for that week, its corresponding “secret,” excerpts from Trotter’s reflections, and a link to the study guide for that chapter. We encourage you to take your time reading one chapter a week and slowly working your way through the corresponding study guide questions.
Ways to prepare for this journey:
1. Purchase The Way of the Sevenfold Secret. This reasonably-priced book ($7.99), includes an introduction by Dr. Miriam Adeney (anthropologist, missiologist, and author of Daughters of Islam: Building Bridges with Muslim Women). Click on the picture below to purchase:
(If you are unable to purchase, here is a link to a PDF version of the book: Sevenfold PDF)
2. Print or save the following Study Guide:
Study Guide: The Way of the Sevenfold Secret
(We will also include a link to this each week)
3. Subscribe to this blog (upper right) and/or follow us on social media: Facebook, Instagram, and X.
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“For these seven sayings are so simple that a child can understand them, according to his intelligence,
but so deep that all the wise men in the world cannot reach to their depths.”
~ Lilias Trotter (The Way of the Sevenfold Secret)