Deacon’s Corner
It is always amazing how the month of January just flies by! It seems like we just completed the Advent Season, celebrated Christmas and welcomed in the New Year. Now, glancing at the month of February, Ash Wednesday is on the 18th, and we begin the Lenten Season. That is hard to believe.
How is your New Year’s Resolution going? For me, so far pretty good. On new years, anniversaries, and the beginning of the different liturgical seasons, I like to challenge myself to add or change prayer disciplines to liven up or deepen my prayer life. If you did not make any resolutions this year, this Lenten Season is a good time to challenge yourselves.
No, Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation. However, it is one of the most well-attended Masses throughout the entire liturgical year. It marks an earnest beginning to the Lenten Season, inviting the faithful to witness to their Catholic faith, and mortality, by receiving ashes on their foreheads.
Lent is a time of spiritual preparation, self-examination, and penance leading up to the celebration of Easter. Catholics use this time to imitate Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the desert.
It is an opportunity for us to deepen our relationship with God, seek forgiveness for sins, and grow in spiritual discipline. Catholics focus on self-denial, prayerful reflection, and charitable acts as a means of drawing closer to God.
“Lent is a season of intense prayer, fasting, and concern for those in need. It offers all Christians an opportunity to prepare for Easter by serious discernment about their lives, with particular attention to the word of God which enlightens the daily journey of all who believe.” – Pope St. John Paul II
In Pope Benedict XVI’s homily on Ash Wednesday 2006, he said, “Lent reminds us, therefore, that Christian life is a never-ending combat in which the “weapons” of prayer, fasting and penance are used. Fighting against evil, against every form of selfishness and hate, and dying to oneself to live in God is the ascetic journey that every disciple of Jesus is called to make with humility and patience, with generosity and perseverance.”
The USCCB provides this opening prayer of the Ash Wednesday liturgy known as the “Collect.” Let Us Pray: Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Have a Blessed month of February!
See you at the next Mass!
Jesus, Do in me what You must, so as to do through me, What You Will!
- Deacon Matt