CAMDEN – Calling the beginning of the Lenten season “a spiritual springtime” for one’s soul, Bishop Dennis Sullivan urged the faithful gathered Ash Wednesday to return to Christ. “Change your lives.”
March 2 marked the beginning of Lent, the 40-day season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in the Catholic Church that ends at sundown on Holy Thursday, April 14, followed by the Paschal Triduum and Easter Sunday on April 17.
Faithful filled the pews in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for the Mass, which was livestreamed on diocesan social media platforms. The replay can be seen at youtube.com/CamdenDiocese.
The ashes blessed by Bishop Sullivan and distributed to the congregation, he said, represent “an outward sign of an inward spirit that we need to have – a spirit of repentance. As ashes represent ruin, we know that ruin has happened in our lives by sin.”
“This is a season for sinners, [and] I’m the first one to join the line here today,” he continued, raising his hand. Sinners, he said, “sorry for their sins, want to do something about it, and that’s what the ashes represent.”
Solace can always be found in returning to God no matter how many times one strays from the right path. “If you have to start over, start over,” Bishop Sullivan said. “We can always start over with Christ. The door is never closed.”
Good Lenten practices, Bishop Sullivan explained, include “more time, better time with prayer, time for God … sacrifice, self-denial, which means I depend less on myself and depend on God to give me strength. And of course charity, almsgiving, reaching out, especially to the poor and needy.”
Seeing these days of Lent as a chance to “strengthen our relationship with God [and] renew our lives in Christ,” he said, will help ensure that “when we get to Easter, there will be results in the lives of each one of us.”
At the Mass, Bishop Sullivan blessed the Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowls, which are used in the social service agency’s campaign to end hunger and malnourishment throughout the world. Inviting all to take one home and fill it generously during Lent, he prayed that the boxes be “instruments of encounter, bringing us closer to God.”
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