In the first episode of this series, Let’s Talk About Lent, Fr Will and Sr Theresa Maria invite us to look into the meaning of Lent and the significance of Ash Wednesday.
Let’s Talk About Lent – Episode 1: What is Lent – is available here:
Let’s Talk About Lent – Episode 1: What is Lent? – Transcript
Hi everyone, I’m Fr Will. Hi everyone, I’m Sr Teresa. And we’re here to talk to you guys about Lent, Lent. One the first questions is, what is Lent and what is the meaning of it?
Lent is a journey, a spiritual journey of forty days before Easter. We remember the forty days that Jesus went into the desert before his public ministry. Lent invites us to live out radical discipleship. After hearing and knowing his identity as God’s beloved Son, Jesus can face the temptation with divine strength. And you too, and for us too, in order to fight against temptation in our lives and within us we need to create space to hear God’s voice, the voice that keeps affirming us of our own identity as God’s beloved son and daughter. So, in liturgical year, Lent start with Ash Wednesday. So as a priest, what do you do on Ash Wednesday?
Yeah, several more masses on the day. So we might have some in the morning and then in the evening. But we try and open up a possibility for everyone to begin Lent well. Probably one of the big markers of Ash Wednesday is that we get the ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday and use them to sign ourselves or to sign everyone that attends Mass on the forehead and you say, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return or repent and believe in the gospel as a way of drawing us back to Christ and kind of the basics of spiritual life.
Isn’t that so amazing? I love this ritual so much because ash also remind me of our immortality. Oh right. And our vulnerability to return to God and find in God strength.
So make sure you get out to an Ash Wednesday liturgy near you. There are plenty of places online you can check it out. It’s a beautiful way to start Lent and begin this journey back to Christ.