Ash Wednesday

Lent is a time to examine our lives carefully and to root out those things that keep us from loving God and each other fully. Today we enter into the desert for forty days on our journey to the Resurrection.

On this day all the faithful according to ancient custom are encouraged to approach the altar there the priest dipping his thumb into ashes previously blessed marks the forehead of the communicant and saying, “Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return", or "Turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel."

The ashes used in this ceremony are made by burning the remains of the palms blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year.