The Catholic Church lovingly welcomes back those who may not regularly attend Mass and the Lenten season is the perfect time to connect again with one's faith.
That was a significant message shared by the Most Reverend John Oliver Barres, Bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre.
Bishop Barres delivered this Lenten homily on Ash Wednesday at the The Cathedral of St. Agnes.
“I invite you to experience the power and liberation of Christ’s mercy and forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance and to cross the bridge into the full practice of your Catholic faith through a radical fidelity to the Sunday Mass and an ever-deepening love for our Lord’s presence in the Holy Eucharist. Perhaps you are not a Catholic and yet have some mysterious attraction to the Catholic Mass and the Eucharist. You are not alone. Many saints had the same experience and were drawn to enter the Church through their intuitive experience of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in our parish churches,” said Bishop Barres.
According to the most recent data from the Association of Religious Data Archives, there are 837,694 Catholics in Suffolk County, witn an estimated 1.4 million Catholics in all of Long Island.
The Lenten season is considered to be one of the most spiritual times of the church calendar, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday, which is a few days before Easter Sunday.
It is a period of time for Catholics to spiritually prepare for the solemn time of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Ashes are placed in a cross on a person’s forehead, representing the Catholic belief that we are born from dirt and dust and our physical bodies shall return to that upon death.
"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," is what Priests pray while placing ashes on the heads of parishioners. The ashes come from burnt palms used during Palm Sunday masses from the year before.
“Let’s believe again that the Holy Spirit can take us where we need to go. All of us experience sluggishness and lukewarmness. All of us experience resistances to grace. All of us experience emotional, psychological and spiritual ruts that we find it difficult on our own to emerge from. But we renew our trust in the Holy Spirit working deeply within us,” said Bishop Barres in his Ash Wednesday homily.
The 40 days of Lent also symbolizes the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, where Catholics believe he was tempted by the devil. Christ fasted from food and water during those 40 days. Catholics now fast from meat on Fridays in Lent as a way to connect spiritually to the days of Christ fasting in the desert.
“So often in life we discover that almost without ourselves knowing it, we have emerged from these ruts and the Holy Spirit has been at work helping us to embrace the healing power and mystery of the Cross. This Ash Wednesday 2024, as we begin the Season of Lent, we open our contrite hearts to prayer, fasting, almsgiving and conversion,” concluded the Diocese of Rockville Centre Bishop.