Ash Wednesday Liturgy
On Wednesday 17 February, the entire St Patrick’s community gathered in the MSC for a prayer service to mark the start of the 2021 Lenten Season. The tradition of receiving ashes relates to our being reminded that life is finite and that one day we meet our life’s end. Being reminded of this then prompts us to ensure that we are living the best life we can. This is the beauty of Lent—it is a time to reflect, pray, contemplate, and renew—all with the intention of making us better people who are more in tune with God.
Each year our Ash Wednesday liturgy launches the Benedictine value we will focus on throughout the year. For 2021, we will have stewardship as our focus value.
“Make the world a better place!” is the phrase that echoed throughout the MSC at the start of our Ash Wednesday liturgy. Many of us share the belief that God created the world. Indeed the first chapter of the first book of the Bible—the Book of Genesis—is the source of this belief. The Book of Genesis tells us that “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” From the same story from Genesis we learn that God entrusted the care of the world to people.
The Bible teaches us that we have been entrusted with the care of the world. However, having been entrusted with something, we are not only to maintain it; we are expected to make it better as well. In seeing stewardship as not only taking care of something, but also making it better ties in with the theme for Project Compassion this year which is: “be more”. As usual, our fundraising efforts this term will be to try and exceed our previous years’ contributions to Project Compassion.
During this time of Lent, we as a caring community, aspire to continue to make St Patrick’s better and, in turn, we participate in making the world a better place.
Angelo Gattone - Mission Coordinator
