Dear Friends:
Please join us in the sanctuary on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. for our Ash Wednesday service. I have copied and edited the words that appear below that describe the meaning of Ash Wednesday as the beginning of the Lenten Season in the Church which continues until sundown on Maundy Thursday.
Tom Clifton
We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ. We are invited, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent, by self-examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by practicing works of love, and by reading and reflecting on God’s Holy Word.
Many Christians attend special Ash Wednesday church services at which churchgoers receive ash on their foreheads or the top of their heads, as the wearing of ashes has been a sign of repentance since biblical times. The imposition of ashes is typically done with the sign of the cross, signifying that the recipient is a follower of Jesus. Ash Wednesday derives its name from this practice, in which the words accompany the placement (imposition) of ashes, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or the dictum “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Other appropriate words may be used when the ashes are received.