On February 22, Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), we will celebrate the Holy Eucharist with Imposition of Ashes at 12:10 pm. We will have a second service at 7:00 pm for those unable to be with us at noon.
“All of us who are human beings are in the image of God. But to be in his likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God.” – Diadochus of Photike
The holy season of Lent is a is a journey towards the cross in which we engage our human freedom to accept the Grace of Resurrection. The priest on Ash Wednesday prays:
“We begin our journey to Easter with the sign of ashes, an ancient sign, speaking of the frailty and uncertainty of human life, and marking the penitence of the community as a whole. I invite you therefore, in the name of the Lord, to observe a holy Lent by self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on the word of God.”
It is important for us to remember that repentance and any spiritual discipline only make sense in the light of kenosis – the Greek word which expresses the notion of ‘self emptying.’ The solemnity of Lent is not to punish ourselves or to win God’s favour through self mortification, but rather to bring our attention to those idols – institutional, communal, familial, personal – that keep us separate from God and one another. We are giving our total consent to God’s total Self Giving to us by turning towards God (repentance) and engaging our human freedom in bearing sacrifice with love to choose God above all.
