"Come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning" (Joel. 2:12).
Readings for today: Joel 2:12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
For more information on Ash Wednesday, please refer to my post from last year.
For more information on Ash Wednesday, please refer to my post from last year.
Wishing all my Christian readers a blessed and life-altering Lent.
By the way, if you're curious about the background change, The Apple Cider Mill has gone purple for Lent; purple is the liturgical color for this season, representing repentance and waiting. When Easter comes, we'll be back to our regular color scheme :)
I was just annointed with ashes at my workplace. I'm not Catholic, and the priest said "It's not a stamp of being Catholic, rather it's a sign of rebirth and reform."
ReplyDeleteGod Bless you and your family. :) I love your blog.
Marianne- The priest was absolutely right. We receive ashes as a sign that we wish to repent of our sins and an acknowledgement that we are "dust and to dust we shall return": unworthy of the salvation and mercy that God offers us so freely! At my college, we had an ecumenical (cross-denominational) Ash Wednesday service every year. I loved seeing all the different Christians from our largely secular school gathering at the center of campus. Up front were the campus priest, a Lutheran minister, an Episcopalian minister, and even the president of our university who was an ordained Presbyterian minister! They would distribute the ashes to us, no matter what our creed, because we were there for the same reason: to turn back to God in the name of Jesus Christ.
ReplyDelete~Bethany