Lent 2021—A Spiritual Exercise in Faith
Lent is a time of change.
Perhaps for us, it may be a change for a more focused prayer life, or a change in our environment by the length of daylight and darkness, and hopefully, a change for the better in the way we each live our lives.
The Season of Lent always begins in the mid of our Winter months and carries us through 40 days to the warming sun of early Springtime. If we look around our car park prayer space, our Cathedral in the Fields, we see trees in our lot which are now bare of leaf and foliage. In the weeks to follow during Lent, the branches will show signs of change…buds of new life will emerge from branches and signs of change in appearance will be transforming.
This Lent, instead of giving up candy, cookies, or whatever item of pleasure we in the past have chosen to abstain from, let us choose to offer up ourselves in the sacrifice of change…Change in the hope and promise to become better people…to be willing to change and continue to grow into the people God created us to be.
Join us in a parish spiritual exercise in faith.
We invite you to prayerfully take some time to reflect upon what changes you would like to make in your own life. 
After prayerful reflection, write down your hope for change on a piece of ribbon (examples: to be more kind, to love more, not to be so judgmental…any color of ribbon, approx. 20” in length). Please use a PERMANENT MARKER.
Every member of your family can participate in this prayer exercise.
When finished, bring your ribbon/s to church with you and choose a tree, perhaps a tree you usually park near or under for Mass, and tie your ribbon/s to a branch. Parents and Friends, you may need to assist your children or a senior friend if they ask for help in reaching a branch on which to tie their ribbon prayer.
Our willingness to change what we each offer to place in God’s loving mercy will be a visual symbol of faith to our parish community, as well as to the world around us. As a parish community, our Lenten prayer can become one of unit—not only praying for ourselves, but also for one another.
To continue with this ritual, these prayer ribbons will be taken off the trees and collected at the conclusion of Lent, on Holy Thursday, and placed in front of the Holy Thursday altar, at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday, and in the Easter fire as our prayerful offering, at the Easter Vigil Mass.
Ribbons can begin being hung the weekend of February 13th/14th.
Hope you will join us in prayer on this Lenten journey!
Due to COVID, instead of distributing ashes on the forehead we will be sprinkling ashes on the crown of the head. This is a traditional European custom.
