On February 14th, Jesuit celebrated the annual Ash Wednesday Mass. Ash Wednesday is a very important day for Christians around the world as it initiates the beginning of the Lenten season.
Ash Wednesday Mass
The Jesuit community came together to celebrate one of the most important days on the Liturgical calendar last week.
Why do you get ashes? You get ashes during the beginning of Lent because it represents death and repentance. The ashes resemble mortality because when you are given the ashes, the administer says the following:
“Remember you are dust and dust you shall return.”
The ashes generally come from the burning of the prior year’s palms from Palm Sunday. This shows a cycle as almost one year ago the palms were used to symbolize Jesus coming to Jerusalem and the ashes initiate the Lenten season where Jesus is in the desert for forty days. Christians generally wear their ashes all day as it is an evangelical symbol that we are believers in Christ and that we are prepared to start the Lenten season.
In Father Joseph’s homily, we were told how we generally view Lent as “giving up” something, and how we should change our view as we begin the Lenten season. During Lent you can either pray, fast, or give alms. Father Joseph discussed that we should not do something during Lent just because we think it might be difficult or show that we can do something difficult, but to spiritually grow in our faith life with God. Lent is supposed to be a time of discernment and preparation before Jesus dies on the Cross and then resurrects on Easter Sunday.
At the end of Mass, Mr. Garrison shared the variety of opportunities Jesuit students can participate in during the Lenten season. Students can go to daily mass, participate in the stations of the cross by the prayer garden, participate in adoration every Monday, go to reconciliation with either Father Joseph or Father Tan, or find other ways to grow in their spiritual lives during Lent.
How We Can Improve During The Lenten Season
I was also able to meet with Father Joseph, who discussed how as a community we can grow in our faith life during the season of reflection.
How do you think we should stay accountable to our Lenten promises this season?
In Lent, we really journey together which means that when things get tough on the journey we rely on each other for inspiration. We should see modeling amongst each other and that’s true at any time, and especially during Lent. We just finished watching a movie in my sophomore theology class “Life is Beautiful.” In this movie, the father models for his son how to be happy in the midst of suffering, and that’s why it’s called “Life is Beautiful,” because there’s something good that we can always find and share with someone.
“Accountability is tied in other people, meaning we hold each other accountable, not to criticize or to bring someone down.” – Fr. Roy Joseph, SJ
Rather, we are called to do the opposite by building each other up. So, it’s part of our attentiveness to build up and edify each other. It is the season of humility and being humble enough to say “I need help with this,” and that we need God’s help and we need other people’s help because we can’t do this alone.
There are things that we can do to be accountable towards ourselves. For example, with prayer or with fasting and almsgiving we can look at these as important things to take precedence on our calendar to prioritize them. If you look at your calendar and there’s nothing on the calendar having to do with prayer, there’s a problem. On the weekends, we should have reminders for students to attend Mass.
If you have something else on Saturday or Sunday, you should be able to shift things around and be creative enough to find a mass somewhere where you can go.
“The reason is that Mass is a one form of prayer, and there are other moments of prayer every day that we have already desired.” – Fr. Roy Joseph, SJ
Whatever that looks like, whether it’s an examen, a part of a rosary, or a devotional book, it is important that we’re using some time of the day over prayer. We can hold ourselves personally accountable like that.
We have events at Jesuit because it is a way that we hold ourselves accountable. We should have reminders whenever we come on campus as we’re doing the examen to give ourselves a checkup as we’re here on campus where you are able to pick yourself back up when it is hard to persevere. This is where you spend most of your day for 8 hours, or some people even more depending on what they do after school, making campus activity a big part of your life.
Our faith is not just to do at home or at church, but it should be conducted everywhere. At some point every day we should be thinking about God: during the examen, when you see a picture of Jesus, when somebody says something to a friend, or when you’re sitting there chatting with a priest.
“The entire point of Lent is to grow closer in God through humility.” – Fr Roy Joseph, SJ
Through humility, we can find something that we have to change in our lives because we’re not perfect yet, and we can work to better ourselves in the places where we spend most of the day, like school.
However, we are in joy at the end of this journey seeing that we were accountable to the people and things around us, and that we are able to persevere when it was difficult because we were humble enough to reach out to others.
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