February 26, 2025

LENT BEGINS NEXT WEEK WITH ASH WEDNESDAY

Dear Friends in Christ,  

This coming Wednesday, March 5th, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting, prayer, and abstinence from meat for the whole church. 

On Ash Wednesday, we fast and pray so that we might focus on the Lord, who is the source of all life and love. As we begin the season of Lent, in which we observe more intensive fasting, prayer and almsgiving, it is important to remember why we engage in these Lenten practices. I like to call these practices, “Catholic calisthenics.”  We do them so that we might remember our deep need for God.  We engage in these practices so that our hearts might be enlarged by God’s grace. As we remove the noise, distractions, and barriers which prevent us from hearing God’s word, we open our hearts to his saving love.  Last year, on Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis gave us a particularly moving homily to guide us as we embark upon this season of renewal. Here is an excerpt:

When you give alms, or pray or fast, take care to do these things in secret, for your Father sees in secret (cf. Mt 6:4). “Go to your room”: this is the invitation that Jesus addresses to each of us at the beginning of the Lenten journey. Going to your room means returning to the heart, as the prophet Joel admonishes (cf. Joel  2:12). It means journeying from without to within, so that our whole life, including our relationship with God, is not reduced to mere outward show, a frame without a picture, a draping of the soul, but is born from within and reflects the movements of our heart, our deepest desires, our thoughts, our feelings, the very core of our person.

Lent, then, immerses us in a bath of purification and of self-spoliation: it helps us to remove all the cosmetics that we use in order to appear presentable, better than we really are. To return to the heart means to go back to our true self and to present it just as it is, naked and defenseless, in the sight of God. It means looking within ourselves and acknowledging our real identity, removing the masks we so often wear, slowing the frantic pace of our lives and embracing life and the truth of who we are. Life is not a play; Lent invites us to come down from the stage and return to the heart, to the reality of who we are: a return to the heart and the truth.

That is why this evening, in a spirit of prayer and humility, we receive ashes on our head. This gesture is meant to remind us of the ultimate reality of our lives: that we are dust and our life passes away like a breath (cf. Ps 39:6; 144:4). Yet the Lord – he and he alone – does not allow it to vanish; he gathers and shapes the dust that we are, lest it be swept away by the winds of life or sink into the abyss of death.

The ashes placed on our head invite us to rediscover the secret of life. They tell us that as long as we continue to shield our hearts and hide ourselves behind a mask, to appear invincible, we will be empty and arid within. When, on the other hand, we have the courage to bow our heads in order to look within, we will discover the presence of God who loves us and has always loved us. At last those shields you have built for yourself will be shattered and you will be able to feel yourself loved with an eternal love.

Sister, brother, I, you, each of us, is loved with an eternal love. We are ashes on which God has breathed his breath of life, we are the earth which he has shaped with his own hands (cf. Gen 2:7; Ps 119:73), dust from which we will rise for a life without end prepared for us from all eternity (cf. Is 26:9)…. POPE FRANCIS



PLEASE JOIN US ON ASH WEDNESDAY

Saint Jude - Redmond

Mass at 9AM, 12:15 PM, AND 7 PM

Holy Innocents - Duvall

Mass at 9AM AND 7 PM

Saint Anthony – Carnation

Mass at 12 NOON,

Liturgy of Word with Distribution of Ashes

in Spanish 7:30 PM

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE HOLY FATHER

Please continue to pray for Pope Francis, who has been in the hospital fighting serious illness this past week. May God give him the strength, grace, that that he needs.

I wish all of you a blessed and fruitful Lent. May we be renewed by the saving love of the Lord in this holy

season.

Blessings on your week!

Fr. Johnson