We are about to embark on our Lenten Journey once again! Ash Wednesday, 
(14th February) marks the beginning of this Penitential Season. Every year we make this journey with various resolutions and promises. Some may make the personal sacrifices of giving up some luxury or pleasure; others may embrace an additional penance or task, which of course, is always personal to the individual. But the main objective of the Lenten Season is to help to prepare us for the greatest event within the whole history of creation and the world, that at a moment in time, God’s only Son Jesus Christ was raised from death, and through the saving action of the Cross, won salvation for the whole human race!
Hopefully, the desire of every Catholic Christian is to deepen their relationship with the Living Lord Jesus, and anything that can help in this process can only be a good thing! Whether it’s our personal sacrifices or our additional penances, we have these next several weeks to really enter into the spirit of the Season.
On Ash Wednesday, we are starkly reminded of our own mortality; we are signed in ash on our foreheads with the Cross of Christ, reminding us of the Saving Action of Jesus Christ, but also our own mortality, “remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return” – and we are invited to enter into the Divine Mystery with the Lord; to travel with him through these forty days, ultimately through to his Passion Death and Resurrection. There will be three masses on Ash Wednesday: 9.00am, 12.15pm & 8.00pm. What more fitting way to enter into the Holy Season than to ask the Lord to bless us and our families. Please come and receive your ashes, which will be distributed at all the masses!
“Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:12).This is the theme of Pope Francis’ Lenten message this year. God in his providence offers us each year the season of Lent as a “sacramental sign of our conversion”. Lent summons us, and enables us, to come back to the Lord wholeheartedly and in every aspect of our life. May God Bless You All
St Edmund of Canterbury 