Category: Inspiration

profound truths, provoking thought, offering perspective, and stimulating the Spirit

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, where we are marked with ashes. The ashes on our forehead remind us of the human condition: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The Church asks us to increase our prayer, fasting and almsgiving. True fasting and prayer should make us more aware that nothing on earth can ultimately satisfy us. We are, as St. Augustine famously wrote, made for God and so our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.

Our priest asked us today in his homily to take time during Lent and listen. Most of us increase our spiritual activities during Lent but do we always keep an ear to what God wants for us and listening to His will in our lives. Make time to listen and see what you hear.

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent 2012 in the Roman Catholic Church. But for Catholics of the various Eastern rites, Lent will begin two days earlier, on Clean Monday.

Clean Monday is a reminder that we should begin Lent with good intentions and a desire to clean our spiritual house. It is a day of strict fasting for Eastern Catholics, including abstinence not only from meat but from eggs and dairy products as well. On Clean Monday and throughout Great Lent, Eastern Catholics frequently pray the Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian.

“All that matters in the end is the goal for which we are created. The union with God.” – Fr. Kubicki

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