Lent is the time for the preparation for the Christian Pasch – the commemoration of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Saviour Jesus Christ.
For a period of forty days, which started on Ash Wednesday, until Good Friday – the Liturgy invites us Christians to depart from the ways of sin so as to enter into union with Christ to receive the life of grace that conducts to eternal life.
His Lordship Mgr Mario Grech, Bishop of Gozo, spoke in these terms while addressing the congregation at the Gozo Cathedral to participate in the ceremony of Ash Wednesday.
The Bishop blessed ashes and then strewed it on the heads of the members of the Cathedral Chapter and the faithful, with the words: “Remember, that you are but dust and undo dust you shall return.”
Ashes symbolise the frailty and transience of all earthly matters and of all human things, while its strewing on the forehead is an invitation for repentance for sin.