LENT 2023

ASH WEDNESDAY:
​February 22, 2023
Sacred Heart Cathedral celebrations: 12:10 & 7pm

Our Lady of Victory celebration:  6pm

Contact your parish/ mission directly for times
Why Ashes? (PDF)
STATIONS OF THE CROSS:
Sacred Heart Cathedral:  Every Friday at 7pm
The Way of the Cross (PDF)
Stations of the Cross for families (PDF)



HOLY WEEK:
​April 3rd to 8th

Easter Triduum Mass poster - Schedule to be determined
Check back closer
​to the date
​
​Holy Week pamphlet - CCCB (PDF) 
FOR FAMILIES:
Lent countdown (PDF)
Stations of the Cross (PDF)
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WHAT IS LENT?

​Lent is a 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that starts on Ash Wednesday & ends on Holy Thursday. It's a time of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter. We seek Him by reading His Word; we help others through giving alms; and we practice self-control by fasting. Abstinence from luxuries is important, but true inner conversion of heart is key for faithfully following Christ's will during this sacred season of preparation. In the Lent season, we remember our baptism when we were born again into a new life in Christ, and died to sin and evil.

 
PRAYER
While almsgiving is openness to the other, prayer is openness to God. Without prayer, both fasting and almsgiving would not hold up; They would fall under their own weight. In prayer, God changes our heart, He makes it cleaner, more understanding, more generous… in a word, He transforms our negative attitudes and creates in us a new heart full of charity. 

​Prayer is a generator of love. Prayer leads me to interior conversion. Prayer is a vigorous promoter of action, that is, it leads to do good works for God and for our neighbor. In prayer we recover the strength to emerge victorious from the snares and temptations of the world and the devil. Lent is a favorable time for prayer.
 
FASTING

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are universal days of fasting and abstinence from meat. Anyone over the age of 18 and under the age of 59 are obliged to fast and abstain. 

Fasting, in the Latin Church, is the limitation of food and drink – typically to one main meal and two smaller meals (that together do not equal the regular meal in size), with no solid foods in between. Abstinence is the refraining from certain kinds of food or drink, typically meat. 

​Fasting, not only from food and drink but also from other things, is also pleasing to God, as it will help us to temper our body, sometimes so capricious and gifted, and make it strong so that it can accompany the soul in the fight against the usual enemies: the world, the devil and our own passions.

Fasting and abstinence, above all, from our selfishness, vanity, pride, hatred, laziness, gossip, bad desires, revenge, impurities, anger, envy, resentment, injustice, insensitivity to the miseries of others.

Fasting and abstinence, even, from good and legitimate things to repair our sins and offer God a small sacrifice and an act of love. For example, fasting from television, entertainment, movies, dances during this time of Lent.

​Fasting and abstinence, also, from many means of consumption, from stimuli, of satisfaction of the senses; fasting here will mean giving up everything that feeds our tendency to curiosity, sensuality, the dissipation of the senses, the superficiality of life. This type of fasting is more meritorious in the eyes of God and will require much more effort, more self-control, more love and will on our part.
* Click here or on poster to download pdf
 
ALMSGIVING
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Giving alms has always been an important part of Lent. For many people, it means giving money to Catholic charities or some other good cause. But the concept of almsgiving goes much deeper.

It is our response to the teachings of Jesus that encourage us to reach out to people in need—not just with our money—but with our time and our talents:  Help those who need it, teach those who don’t know, give good advice to those who ask for it, share joy, spread a smile, offer our forgiveness to those who have offended us. Almsgiving is that willingness to share everything, the readiness to give of oneself.  It means the attitude of openness and charity towards the other. Let us remember Saint Paul: “If I distributed all my property… having no charity, nothing profits me” (1Co 13, 3). Saint Augustine is also very eloquent when he writes: “If you extend your hand to give, but you do not have mercy in your heart, you have done nothing”.
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​PENANCE AND CONFESSION