LENT is not a time of gloom and pessimism, but a “joyful and glorious opportunity”, Brisbane priest Fr Tom Elich said at the 8am Ash Wednesday Mass at St Stephen’s Cathedral.
He said Lent was a time “that God offers us for conversion, for a change of heart, for a renewal of our minds and hearts”.
The Gospel, he said, cut to the heart of the Lenten disciplines – prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
He said God invited us into these disciplines so that “at the end of these weeks of Lent, we come to celebrate Easter, to make our baptismal promises renewed, strengthened in faith”.
“Our prayer is not so much a kind of an inward anguishing, but rather an opportunity to encounter Christ, to enter more deeply into the mystery of who God is and how God deals with us,” he said.
“Our fasting is, yes, a discipline but it’s a sign of solidarity with all those people around the world who live in poverty, who are dying of hunger and famine.
“There’s an outward focus in what we do – and most obviously of course in our almsgiving, we give generously so that others may benefit and flourish.”
Ash Wednesday remains one of the most popular days on the liturgical calendar with the cathedral Masses throughout the day drawing large numbers.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the 40 days of Lent that lead to Holy Week and Easter.
Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting.
The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the head, which symbolise the dust from which God made Adam.
This is where the words come from when the priest applies the ashes to a person’s forehead, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Alternatively, the priest may speak the words, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
Fr Elich, in his homily, said “let’s accept our Cross with ashes this morning as a mark of our beginning repentance, our beginning of conversion and a change of heart”.
“Let us embrace our cross joyfully and gratefully, that we have this opportunity to enter more deeply into the mystery of our baptism,” he said.
