Ash Wednesday Mass is more than just a ritual. This was the reminder shared by Father Peter Clinton St. Hillaire with parishioners during a service on Wednesday in Tobago.
At 6am, parishioners gathered at the Scarborough Roman Catholic Church to receive ashes, marking the start of the 40-day Lenten season.
“The priest and the ministers putting that ashes on your forehead, they will say, ‘Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.’ In other words, brothers and sisters, we are not here for long. But yet the ashes also is a sign of hope, marking the start of a journey back to God. Lent is not just about giving up things, abstaining from this, no meat, no ice cream, no Netflix. It is about returning to the Lord with all your heart, letting him transform us from within.”
Father Hillaire called on parishioners to use the period of Lent as a time of reflection and reconciliation. He said that God wants authenticity.
“The ashes we wear today are not decorations or badges of honor. They are outward signs of an inward desire to change. It is not about ‘I am a Catholic, and I went this morning to get my ashes,’ and we walking all over and wiping your face around the ashes because we want people to see that you went to church. So it is not decorations. The ashes remind us that our lives are fragile but that also God’s mercy is greater than our weaknesses.”