22 FEBRUARY – ASH WEDNESDAY – THE BEGINING OF THE GREAT LENT

Сhurch of the İmmaculate Conception: at 7:00 AM in English / at 12:45 PM in Russian / at 6:00 PM in Azeri

St. John Paul II parish: at 7:00 PM in Russian

 

With the Ash Wednesday Liturgy, the Catholic Church enters the forty-day period of Great Lent. The number forty carries a special meaning, reminding us of the forty-day fast of Jesus Christ in the desert. In order for there to be exactly 40 days from the beginning of Lent to Easter events, at the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great added 4 days to the period of Great Lent, and Lent began to begin on Ash Wednesday and end on Wednesday of Holy Week, amounting to exactly forty days ( Sundays are excluded from Lent). On this day, all believers over 18 and under 60 are required to fast. You can eat up to your fill only once, in addition, all believers over 14 years old should abstain from meat food on this day.

The liturgical readings of this day call us to repentance and conversion: “But even now, says the Lord, come back to me with all your heart, keeping from food, with weeping and with sorrow: Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.” (Joel 2:12-14).

The custom of using ashes as a sign of sorrow and repentance goes back to the Old Testament, where this tradition is mentioned more than once. For example, in the book of the prophet Jonah, the king of sinful Nineveh, having repented from the words of the prophet: “he got up from his seat of authority, and took off his robe, and covering himself with haircloth, took his seat in the dust.” (Jonah 3, 6). The same is said in the book of the prophet Ezekiel: “ And their voices will be sounding over you, and crying bitterly they will put dust on their heads, rolling themselves in the dust” (Ezekiel 27, 30). In the New Testament, Jesus Christ says: “Unhappy are you, Chorazin! Unhappy are you, Beth-saida! For if the works of power which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have been turned from their sins in days gone by, clothing themselves in haircloth and putting dust on their heads.” (Mt 11:21). In Jewish culture, the concept of “dust” and “ashes” were denoted by the same word.

Words that remind us that we are dust and will turn to dust, turn the thoughts of believers to the events of the Old Testament, remind us of the creation of man from the dust of the earth, but, at the same time, that the Creator breathed into us the breath of life and we became a “living soul” (Gen. 2:7). Remembering these words about the old man, we should remember about the “new Adam” – Jesus Christ, who, having conquered sin and death, gives us hope for eternal life. The ashes symbolize not so much what we will become, but what we can become if we close our hearts to the invisible world that contains Salvation. Our life without God would be a flash, after which only a handful of ashes remains.

Another call of the day, “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” points us to the path that we must follow to salvation, the need to live the Word of God.