This week we begin our Lenten journey as Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. So many will use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to express their love to someone significant in their life in ways such as buying flowers or chocolates or sharing a meal together. Ash Wednesday, in a sense, invites us to do something similar for God as we examine our lives for the ways in which we have or haven’t loved Him, the ways in which we’ve lived for God & the ways that we haven’t. Lent is about recommitting ourselves to loving God more fully in our daily lives & the way we do that is not with chocolate or flowers, but with our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, & almsgiving.

  Sometimes it’s easy to engage in the same Lenten practices, giving up chocolate, for example, year after year. But maybe a good question to reflect on as we prepare for Lent is, “What in my life is keeping me from loving God & other people as He calls me to?” If that’s chocolate, if that candy bar keeps us from loving God fully, then fast from it. But, maybe what’s really keeping us from loving God & other people fully isn’t chocolate (I don’t know why I keep picking on chocolate, it’s really good), maybe it’s gossip, or an excess use of alcohol, or binging on TV rather than spending time with others, or spending too much time distracting ourselves from making the time to pray. I’d invite us to honestly examine our lives as we draw closer to Ash Wednesday & allow God to show us the answer to that question, “What in my life is keeping me from loving God & other people as He calls me to?”

  Our Masses on Ash Wednesday will be at 8:30 am & 7:00 pm. Together let us turn away from sin & be faithful to the Gospel.