What is Lent?

A time of prayer and penance leading up to the somber commemoration of Christ’s passion and death. As with Advent, Lent is drenched in the penitential color purple, but the aim of penitence in this season is a deeper and more abiding metanoia: the profound and transformative change of heart and mind that results from spiritual conversion.

“All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20)
Ash Wednesday opens the penitential season of Lent with a stark reminder of our frailty and total dependence upon God for all things. Ashes, made from the previous Easter’s palm branches, are solemnly drawn on our foreheads in the shape of a cross; we receive the pronouncement of our mortality in silence, pondering the truth in our hearts as we begin to unite our selves to Christ’s Passion and Death over the following six weeks through fasting, penance, and almsgiving.