How did your Ash Wednesday go, @agdr03 and @GB?
Mine’s just about to start.
In many ways, I prefer the Lenten season to Advent. They’re both a time of preparation. Lent prepares us for Easter while Advent prepares us for the birth of Jesus. But the Advent season has become so commercialized because of the Christmas gift-giving tradition. Thank goodness that businesses haven’t thought of ways to sell Lent…yet.
Wishing you a blessed and holy Lent.
@packmule3, the hot cross buns appear immediately after Christmas here and the British tradition of giving giant chocolate Easter eggs is thriving here with entire rows in supermarkets. Stuffed bunnies and hats to trim will follow. Still, nothing compared to the overwhelming Advent time shopping.
For all who participate in Lent, best wishes in finding something to give up during the season, even if it’s your personal time in favour of spending more time than usual on something worthwhile. I know that restraint is traditional, but sometimes reaching out when it can be a struggle is just as important and, in my own opinion, may be more positive.
Thanks for this thread @pkml3!
I’ve had a good start to Lent, doing more what I’m supposed to do (with less procrastination, and happily!), rather than what I might have wasted time on.
We had a very uplifting Holy Mass this evening. The choir was in good voice, the hymns meaningful, the homily to the point with good advice and given with good humour and lots of ashes to go around. 🙂 The signs of ashes are a wholesome reminder of the life everlasting that we are continually working on, and journeying in, and a reminder to reflect on what good offerings we can make on the journey. 😁
Thank you! That video sums it up nicely. 👍🏻
We couldn’t go to Ash Wednesday mass together as a family because hubby had afternoon shift and my eldest was working too so hubby went in the morning, my youngest got his ashes at school and my eldest and I went tonight.
It was nice to see many people attend Mass. Too many that there were only three transformed bread left. 😃
May this Lenten season be a time of reflection, giving and renewal. 🙏🏼
Thanks for this post @packmule3. I too like Lent; the sparse, penitent nature of it; the chance for reflection on endings and not just beginnings. We will be singing Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus this evening for a probably very small congregation as night begins to fall.
Thanks also for your thoughts @GB and @ardr03. I will carry them with me today and this evening.
I’m sitting in a cafe, having a Valentine’s Day breakfast date with my husband, and half the people in this busy restaurant have ashes on their foreheads. This place is about equidistant from two Catholic churches.
To Packmule3 and others in this thread who observe Ash Wednesday, may this day, and all of Lent, be a time of reflection and spiritual refinement.
I will do the joint greetings here – Happy Valentine’s Day and a blessed Ash Wednesday to those who practice it!!! We celebrate V-day alongside our wedding anniversary which a couple of days earlier. So we get to focus on Ash Wednesday today.
I like Lent and the “giving up something” practice but I also add “do more of instead”. Example, give up soda, drink more water.