Students from Sancta Maria College gathered together in the central courtyard to participate in a spiritual and heart-warming experience, the 2020 Ash Wednesday liturgy.
Prefects came to us and drew the sign of the cross with the ashes on our foreheads. We students used this time to ask for forgiveness from God in preparation for Holy Week.
Ash Wednesday is the beginning to the season of Lent, but why is this day so special?
Father Kevin, our college Chaplin explained: “Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent, a very special time of preparation in many Christian churches throughout the world but especially in the Catholic Church. It is a time of preparation and repentance before the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It lasts 40 days and it is a time for Christians and many other Faiths to begin a time of Repentance and Healing in our Relationships with each other but especially in our relationship with Jesus. Many people go to the Sacrament of Confession also known as Reconciliation so they can purify their life and thereby be ready to celebrate the Season of Easter, also known as a season of New Life.”
Lent season is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar. The 40 days represents the amount of time Jesus spent in the desert, fasting and preparing for His ministry. For the Lent season we should give up and sacrifice luxuries like dessert or meat, or perform an act of kindness like volunteering, until the Lenten season is over.
Why do we put the Ash on our forehead?
Our college Chaplin explained: “The sign of ashes on our forehead is a sign of Faith, Hope and Repentance that we believe in the Love of Jesus for us and that through our lives of Sacrifice and healing and forgiving others, we will deepen our faith in the power of Jesus’s love. It is in the shape of a Cross, reminding us that Jesus Christ, the Son of God died on a Cross to free us from sin to redeem each of us, so if we believe in Jesus and the Sacrifice that He made for us all by dying on a Cross, we can all be redeemed from our sins. We can make a new start because of His love for each of us.”
All the students from Sancta Maria College had a great experience during the Ash Wednesday liturgy, marking the beginning of the Lent season, a great time to remind ourselves of how we can lead a life worshiping and following our Father, God.
Akshita Ann Joby
