Lent always begins with a day of special devotion and discipline known as Ash Wednesday which this year falls on February 22. The traditional worship for this day is especially powerful and calls for the “imposition of ashes.” Parishioners are invited to come forward to receive the imprint of ashes on their foreheads as a sign of their mortality. In this stark way, we are put in mind of the difference between those things that are passing away and those things that endure forever. At St. Stephen’s, we burn palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday and use the ashes on Ash Wednesday.
Lent always begins with a day of special devotion and discipline known as Ash Wednesday which this year falls on February 22. The traditional worship for this day is especially powerful and calls for the “imposition of ashes.” Parishioners are invited to come forward to receive the imprint of ashes on their foreheads as a sign of their mortality. In this stark way, we are put in mind of the difference between those things that are passing away and those things that endure forever. At St. Stephen’s, we burn palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday and use the ashes on Ash Wednesday.
