Next Wednesday 2 March is Ash Wednesday. Do try and get to Mass and to receive the ashes. We will have two Masses that day at St Joseph and the English Martyrs Church: 9:30 am and 7:30 pm. The 9:30 Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Paul McAleenan.
Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent, a season of personal and communal conversion and renewal. The whole Church undertakes Lent in order to accompany Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem and to his Death and Resurrection. In Him, we die to sin; in Him we rise to life. Lent reminds us that the Christian life is an unending combat in which the weapons of prayer, fasting and penance are used. Fighting against evil in ourselves and against every form of selfishness, hate and injustice, dying to self in order to live in God is the ascetic journey every Christian disciple is called to make with humility, generosity and perseverance.
Ash Wednesday is a Day of Fasting and Abstinence. Fasting means reducing considerably the amount of food we eat (e.g. having just one meal) and abstinence means abstaining from eating meat. The law of fasting applies to anyone aged 18-60. The law of abstinence applies to those who are over 14 (cf. CIC 1252).
Perhaps you could offer your fasting and abstinence this Ash Wednesday as a prayer for justice, peace and reconciliation in our world, especially in Cameroon and in Ukraine.