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Wednesday, February 17, 2021Location: Church
“Trace a cross, Lord, not only on our foreheads, but on our hearts….” That Ash Wednesday prayer echoes the words from the prophet Joel that we will hear this week: “Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord your God.” Those words are particularly poignant this year when, as explained elsewhere in this bulletin, we will not be signing each person with ashes. However, we invite you to return your old palms from the past two years; there will be receptacles in church for that next weekend. We will cut up those palms into small segments, bless them once again on Ash Wednesday, and then offer those to you to take home and, if you wish, burn them and use the ashes to sign one another with the cross that marks the beginning of our Lenten journey. It’s certainly an unusual thing to do, but then, these are unusual times.
So, we invite you to begin Lent this Wednesday, February 17, by coming to church if you can. There will be four opportunities for prayer on Ash Wednesday: the 6:30a.m. Communion Service, a 4:00p.m. Prayer Service, and Masses at 8:30a.m. and 7:00p.m. However, you must sign up for whichever Mass or service you wish to attend, either online at the parish website, or by calling the Rectory no later than 4:00p.m. on Tuesday, February 16. Absolutely no one will be admitted who has not signed up in advance, and our Covid capacity is 135 for each Mass or service.
As with other sacramentals, ashes do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit as the sacraments do; but, by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and help us cooperate with it. Ashes do not make any of us better Christians; prayer does. So, even though you will not receive ashes in church this year, listen and take to heart the words on which you’ll be invited to reflect: either Repent, and believe in the Gospel or Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. If you choose to sign yourself and others in your family at home, you can use one of those formulas and then, perhaps, spend some time together in prayer and reflection.
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