Lenten season arrives as Easter nears

The Lenten season has begun, and parishioners of St. Anthony of Padua gathered at the church to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday.
Kathleen Peters, a parishioner, said, “Ash Wednesday is for the future. God is good. God is very, very good.”
Peters, of Eunice, was raised Catholic, and she said she plans to attend church every day during the Lenten season.
On Ash Wednesday, ashes blessed on the previous year’s Palm Sunday are placed on the foreheads of participants in the shape of a cross. The day marks the beginning of 40 days of fasting for those of the Catholic faith. The period of time mirrors that of the time Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert, according to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Lenten season will end on March 27, Easter Sunday.
This Ash Wednesday was special for Father Travis Abadie as it was his first Ash Wednesday as a priest.
“Lent is that time of preparing for Easter,” Abadie said. “Easter is Jesus rising from the dead. It’s forty days of dying to self, dying to the world so that God’s life and grace can reign. This season of Lent is a special one. It takes place in the year of mercy. This season we die of ourselves by giving to others.
“Hopefully it takes on that characteristic this session.”
Abadie has been a priest for eight months, and he has been with St. Anthony for seven months. The ashes parishioners receive are a two-fold symbol, he said.
“One, they are a symbol of dying — remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” he said. Our bodies pass away, and the ashes are a reminder of that.
“Second the ashes are a sign of penance. They are a sign of sorrow for sins. It’s an ancient scriptural image — putting dust on the head is a sign of turning away from sin and sorrow.”
Abadie said the Lenten season is one of the most religious times of the year.
“God’s mercy is great,” Abadie said. “That’s what it is all about.”