Education in Faith

Season of Lent

Next week  we will celebrate Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent. This is the time when we prepare ourselves for Easter. It is a season for spiritual reflection and fasting that prepares us to celebrate our redemption through Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne lists the days of fasting and abstinence from meat during Lent as Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On all other Fridays of the year and during Lent the ‘law of the common practice of penance’ is fulfilled by performing any one of the following:

• Prayer – for example, Mass attendance; family prayer; a visit to a church or chapel; reading the Bible; making the Stations of the Cross; praying the Rosary.
• Self-denial – for example, not eating meat; not eating sweets or dessert; giving up entertainment to spend time with the family; limiting food and drink so as to give to the poor of one’s own country.
• Helping others – for example, special attention to someone who is poor, sick, elderly, lonely or overburdened.

Lent is a valuable time for examining our direction, refocusing our priorities, and making sure that God is at the centre of our lives.

Please join us next week, 6th March, at the Ash Wednesday Mass which will commence at 11:30 am.