Lent 2006: Ash Wednesday

Welcome to Lent!

The period of time between Ash Wednesday, today, until Holy Thursday. 40 days, not counting Sundays.

Today is a day of fast and abstinence. So we abstain from meat and fast.
http://ewtn.com/faith/lent/fast.htm
This link goes into all the detail on fasting and abstinence.

The trick is that through Lent you can recenter yourself spiritually and physically. You can take on more to make time for God and prayer. Fasting and abstience can help remind us of our own mortality, to remind us of eternal God, and our humility required to be of service to one another in this life. Lent is a time for contemplation, prayer, almsgiving, and reconciliation. We are preparing to celebrate the Easter Season, the most important season of Christianity. Where the bonds of mortality and death are broken through Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI, in quoting his predecessors, says in his message for Lent that we are called to “increased esteem for the dignity of others, the turning towards the spirit of poverty, cooperation for the common good, the will and desire for peace”, but also “the acknowledgement by man of supreme values, and of God, their source and their finality” (Pope Paul VI).
http://ewtn.com/faith/lent/message2006.htm
Again, a call of unselfishness an ongoing theme here and a call for respect of the dignity of human life.

So today, Ash Wednesday, begin your journey through Lent.

Come back to me, with all your heart
don't let fear, keep us apart
trees do bend, through straight and tall
so must we to other's call.