Ash Wednesday Services are at 7am, 12 noon, and 7:00pm.
Lent is the season when the Church prepares for Easter. During Lent the Church invites her members to participate in prayer, penance and active works of mercy. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and it is observed with a special penitential order. Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of blessing ashes made from palm branches blessed on the previous year’s Palm Sunday and placing them on the heads of participants to the accompaniment of the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Ash Wednesday occurs 46 days (40 fasting days, if the 6 Sundays, which are not days of fast, are excluded) before Easter and can fall as early as 4 February or as late as 10 March. Jesus Christ spent 40 days fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan. Lent may have originated as a mirroring of this, fasting 40 days as preparation for Easter. Every Sunday (including each Sunday in Lent) is observed as a Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, commemorating his resurrection, and thus every Sunday is considered a feast day on which fasting is inappropriate. Christians are called by the Church to observe the ordinary weekdays of Lent by special acts of discipline and self-denial in commemoration of the crucifixion of the Lord. In addition, the ordinary Fridays of Lent are traditionally days of abstinence from flesh meats. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are traditionally days of strict fasting and abstinence.