Wednesday, January 21, 2009

From PALMS to ASHES - Sunday, February 22 at 7PM











From Palms to Ashes
-the Rite of Burning of Palms for Ash Wednesday

To reinforce the origin and symbolism of the ashes used on Ash Wednesday we would like to invite all of our parishioners to bring their palm fronds from Palm Sunday on February 22, 2009 at 7:00 PM, the Sunday before Lent starts so we can burn them prior to Ash Wednesday.

Palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday are burned and the resulting ashes imposed on the foreheads of worshippers on Ash Wednesday, February 25, on which Lent begins.

We encourage all of you to gather the old palm from pictures and crucifixes. Carefully — because it is a sacramental — we burn it as a lesson on the "dust" we are and to which we must return. It means so much to all of us Christians if we can burn our own piece of palm as an expression and confirmation of a Lenten resolution we made. However let us take care that these resolutions are not just negative "give-ups," and "do-aways," but positive "build-ups," overflowing from a new abundant charity and love requiring outward expression. So is fasting only one factor of Lent, needing the compensation of prayer and good deeds.

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