Dear Friends:

This Wednesday, March 5, is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. Lent is a season that has been called the “springtime of the soul” for it is a time to pause and reflect on our lives and to take into account our sins and failings. Awareness of our sins and failings can fill us with a sense of hopelessness and despair, but it should not. Lent reminds us that God is kind and merciful, a God who does not hold our sins against us, a God who wants everyone to be converted and to live better lives in this world and to live forever in eternity.

In this bulletin is the schedule for Lent and Holy Week. Ash Wednesday will be a busy day, with five Masses and a Liturgy of the Word service. At all of these celebrations, ashes will be imposed after the homily, as directed by the rubrics. In keeping with our custom since the pandemic, we will once again impose ashes on the top of the head and not on the forehead. This is the way that ashes are imposed in much of the world and it certainly is a more sanitary way of doing it. Furthermore, it aligns very well with the clear message of the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, taken the sixth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus teaches us to avoid what I would call “ostentatious” acts of piety, doing pious things as a way of showing off or drawing attention to ourselves. The “work” of Lent is interior in nature and whatever we do for Lent, be it receiving ashes, taking time for extra prayer, fasting from food, or our cell-phones, or whatever else, or giving alms to needy causes, is strictly between ourselves and God. We should not be looking for attention or applause. Of course, witnessing to our faith is crucial, but we should do so principally by a changed way of life and not by seeking accolades for ourselves.

Take note, too, that we will be praying the Stations of the Cross for all the Fridays of Lent at St. Agnes at 7:30 PM. We will have our usual daily Masses and the usual two hours of confessions each week, with additional time for confession on Holy Saturday morning. Finally, by way of encouraging almsgiving, as has been the custom for several years now, we will take a collection on Ash Wednesday at all services, and the proceeds will be donated to the Beth-El Shelter. Last year, our parish donated some $9,000 to Beth-El from this collection. At the doors, too, there are rice bowls for anyone who would like to make use of them during Lent. Please bring back your donations at the end of Lent and they will be sent to the Archdiocese and then to Catholic Relief Services to do good for the needy and the poor. It would be most helpful if you could convert coinage into bills or a check, as it is a burden to count large amounts of coinage.

May this season of Lent be a time of significant spiritual renewal for us all!

ARCHIVES