Catholic Identity

St Andrew's Parish Alpha Program

St Andrew's Parish is gearing up for our 1st ALPHA at ST. ANDREWS which will start on 21 Feb 2024.

Alpha is an opportunity where we can invite non-Catholic and non-Christian friends to explore big questions in life. This is open to everyone however the slots are limited. Please see the details of the program below.

PRAYER

Next week on Wednesday 14th February we celebrate Ash Wednesday.  This day marks the church moving from the Season of Ordinary Time into the Season of Lent.  Lent is 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus at Easter.

On Ash Wednesday Catholics wear a cross of ashes, on their foreheads. This cross helps us to remember the sacrifice Jesus made when he died on the cross, so that we might join him one day in Heaven.  Usually, these ashes are created by burning palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration. Palm Sunday is the last Sunday of Lent and leads into Holy Week. It is on this day that people laid palms to cover Jesus’s path as he arrived in Jerusalem, just days before he was crucified.

Since the palms have been blessed, instead of throwing them away after the celebration, they are saved to create ashes for the following year’s Ash Wednesday. Sometimes, the ashes are scented with incense and christened by holy water.

Below is a simple prayer you can say each day,  if you choose to fast from something during Lent;

 God, may my sacrifice of today (state your Lenten sacrifice) remind me of my dependence on You for all the blessings I enjoy.