Hundreds gathered at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, in Suva,  yesterday to mark Ash Wednesday.

The day is designated as the first day of Lent, a 40-day period of preparation leading up to Easter.

The ashes are made from the palms used on the Palm Sunday celebration of the previous year.

The ashes, according to the Roman Catholic faith, symbolises the dust from which God made us. As the priest applies the ashes to a person’s forehead, he speaks the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

During the church service the Head of the Catholic Church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong, remembered those in Tonga, Vatoa, and Ono-i-Lau, who were affected by Tropical Cyclone Gita.

Preaching to the congregation, Archbishop Loy Chong said this was the time to show love and charity for the needy.

“This is what this Lenten season called us towards charity. We need to hear the cry of the poor and those who are need,” he said.

Archbishop Loy Chong said this Lenten season also reminded the flock of individual shortcomings in the area of love and charity.

“We think too much of ourselves and forget people who are in need,’’ he said.

Coldness to the Cry of the Poor, Earth

Archbishop Loy Chong said creation itself became a silent witness to this cooling of charity.

“The earth is poisoned by refuse, discarded out of carelessness or for self-interest,” he said.

“The seas, themselves polluted, engulf the remains of countless shipwrecked victims of forced migration.

“The heavens, which in God’s plan, were created to sing his praises, are rent by engines raining down implements of death.”

He said that love could also grow cold in our own communities.

The archbishop went on to quote Pope Frances I when the latter said:“Signs of lack of love; selfishness and spiritual sloth, sterile pessimism, the temptation to self-absorption, constant warning among ourselves, and the worldly mentality that makes us concerned only for appearances, and thus lessens our missionary zeal”.

The Lenten Appeal theme this year is: Rebuilding Communities; One Home at a Time.

Edited by George Kulamaiwasa

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