This is one of the two sentences you may hear if you assist at Mass today. It is a familiar ritual to many not only in Catholicism, but also Christianity. The receiving of ashes, the remnant of burnt palm branches from the preceding Palm Sunday, serves as a reminder of our own mortality.
Thus begins Lent, with its focus on repentance and renewal. The Church's annual six-plus week retreat before Easter. The opportunity to examine our relationship with God. The chance to develop more as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
The Church again offers the ways of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as a means to this end. The challenge, as always, is how intentional, more deliberate we are going to be. What tried and true methods will we use? What more can we incorporate into our spiritual life at this time so as to carry it beyond the Sacred Triduum? How can we become more holy, more perfect?
I offer these questions for your discernment.
Perhaps the best starting point can be found in the other sentence you may hear as you come forward.
"Repent and believe in the Gospel."
Today begins the acceptable time to find more answers to our universal call to holiness.
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