On 5 March, with the celebration of Ash Wednesday, the time of Lent, a period of forty days of prayer, fasting and penitence which prepares Christians for Easter, has begun. In Jerusalem too, the start of Lent was marked by community celebrations in the different convents.

Lent, a time of grace and conversion

At 6.30 in  the morning at the Holy Sepulchre, the Franciscan friars celebrated Mass, presided over by the guardian of the convent, Fra Stéphane Milovitch and concelebrated by Fra Marcelo Cichinelli, of the Commissariat of the Holy Land in Argentina.

In his homily, Fra Marcelo emphasized the value of Lent as a time of grace and conversion, saying that “Lent, for us, already heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, appears as an opportunity offered by the love of the Mother Church to repent, to meet and to be more aware of the predilection of God for each one of us.”

Mass with the local community

At 8.00 in the morning, at the parish of St Saviour, a mass was held for the local community. The celebration was presided over by Fra Tony Choukry, the treasurer of the Custody, with a concelebration by Fra Ibrahim Faltas, the Vicar of the Custody and the parish priest fra Amjad Sabbara.

The mass at St Saviour’s was attended in particular by the pupils and the teachers of the Terra Sancta Schools of Jerusalem, as well as all the other people who work in the Custody. The presence of the local community and of the schoolchildren made the moment of prayer even more significant, offering the faithful the opportunity to start the Lenten path in union and community.

Seeking an intimate relationship with God

During the homily, Fra Tony Choukry invited the faithful to live Lent  as a time to explore further their personal relationship with God. “In the Gospel of today,” fra Tony emphasized, “the Lord invites us to make a choice: Him or the world. This is our Lenten path: choosing God and not the world, creating with Him an intimate relationship between Father and children, that gives us eternal life.”

During the celebrations, there was the usual rite of the imposition of ashes. Obtained from the branches of olive trees of last year’s Palm Sunday, the blessed ashes recall the  transient nature of earthly life and spur on the faithful  to the penitential effort of Lent.

By Lucia Borgato | Custodia.org

Source Link: https://www.custodia.org/en/news/start-of-lent-in-jerusalem/