Beginning Again

Ash Wednesday

An reflection by Sr Lynne, fcJ from FCJ Sisters Blog (Feb 2021)

Ash Wednesday and these early days of lent seem to capture our imagination. We like to ‘receive the ashes’ and even in these Covid times when many churches are closed the internet is full of people who have made their own ash marks and are determinedly setting out on the journey of lent.

Do we like lent because we feel deeply sinful? Is it a negation, an unworthiness? I don’t think so. I think lent offers us our humanity in a simple way – we are dust, we are just ordinary human beings, we live and die, we make mistakes and we rise above them. Simply put, lent offers us the certainty that we can choose, and we can have a new start.

Lent is an invitation to rejoice in our humanity, hear the invitation to recognise our faults, brush ourselves down, stand up and begin again.

Photo by Annika Gordon on Unsplash