Dear Friends,

We are grateful for each one of you who has come to this Ash Wednesday service in body, heart, and spirit to begin the holy season of Lent in community.

We are gathered for one of the most important and meaningful services of the church year. Within the ancient tradition of beginning Lent by being marked in ash with the sign of the cross lies the invitation to turn our attention to the all-creating and all-loving power of God. We prayerfully seek God’s ability to heal the brokenness in our lives, as we kneel before God face to face and offer to God all that which has been broken by life, because only God can make it whole.

This service invites us to wear our ashes on our foreheads as a sign of our penitence, to repent of “those things we have done and ought not to have done”, and to welcome God’s grace and longing for deep relationship with us. This turning towards God is the work of Lent, our preparation and soul work so we may fully share in the celebration of our Easter feast.

O Son of God,
do a miracle for me
and change my heart.
Thy having taken flesh
to redeem me
was more difficult
than to transform
my wickedness.
(An Irish Prayer, anon.,15th century)

With care, Deacon Dina