CEBUANO Catholic faithful were advised to treat Ash Wednesday as a day to “contemplate on one’s mortality,” a church official said yesterday.
Msgr. Esteban Binghay reminded the faithful to not only treat Ash Wednesday, which starts the Lenten season, as a day to have their foreheads marked with ashes but also to contemplate on one’s life on Earth.
Binghay, one of the episcopal vicars of the Archdiocese of Cebu, told Sun.Star Cebu that the 40-day season of Lent should be a time to “live justly and humbly.”
He said that the Christian season of Lent is also a time to remember that “life is but a temporary thing.”
“The imposition of ashes reminds us that from dust you are and to dust you shall return,” he said.
Aside from the imposition of ashes, Catholics, except for the very young, the very old and the sick, are required to fast or abstain from eating meat on Fridays.
As the priest makes a cross of ash on one’s forehead, he will then say, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”
Forty days after Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday will then be observed, which also opens the Holy Week celebration.
For this year, the Lenten Week begins on March 20 and ends on Easter Sunday on March 27.