LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Christians will observe Ash Wednesday Wednesday, ushering in the 40-day season of Lent, when the faithful prepare for Easter by doing penance for sins and seeking spiritual renewal through prayer, discipline and good works.
Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of penance. A minister or priest marks the forehead of each participant with black ashes in the shape of a cross.
In the Roman Catholic church, individuals are told as the ashes are applied to their foreheads, "Turn from sin and live the Gospel."
Catholics observe Ash Wednesday by fasting, abstaining from meat and repenting. Other Christian denominations make fasting optional, with the main focus being on repentance.
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez will celebrate a bilingual Ash Wednesday Mass at 12:10 p.m. at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The Mass will be livestreamed at facebook.com/lacatholics, lacatholics.org/ash- wednesday/ and youtube.com/olacathedral.
Mass will be also celebrated at the cathedral in English at 7 a.m., 8 a.m. and 5:15 p.m., and in Spanish at 7 p.m. Ashes will be distributed during all services.
In his weekly column published in the archdiocesan multimedia publication Angelus News, Gomez urged Catholics to use Lent to be open to change and transformation and to use this new opportunity to "go further" in their personal conversion to Christ to become the people that God wants them to be.
"The church gives us this season of grace each year as a privileged moment to concentrate on our spiritual lives, and to really work on making progress in our ongoing conversion to Christ," Gomez wrote. "Let's not miss this beautiful opportunity that we have, to grow in our relationship with Jesus, to improve ourselves, to be converted more and more in the image of Jesus.
"This is what our life is meant for. We are here to be changed, to be transformed, to be converted. If we think we have done enough already, we are lost. Go further, keep going. Don't stay in the same place, don't go back, don't go off the road," Gomez wrote, citing the first-century theologian and philosopher St. Augustine.