Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season in preparation for Easter.

Donald Boulet is the Life Director at the Saint-Joachim Parish in La Broquerie. He says during their Mass celebration at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday the priest will put ashes on everyone’s forehead to remind them that we came from dust and will return to dust.

“It is a very important event that starts the entire Lenten season. Easter is the highest, most important celebration in Christendom and therefore this preparation is certainly part of our way of fasting toward that season.”

Boulet says the Ash Wednesday service is always well attended. He explains Lent is a symbolic imitation of the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent praying and fasting in the desert.

“We want to imitate the fasting and the praying so that we can be ready for his death and resurrection so that we can rise with him symbolically into a new spiritual life. Therefore it is a preparation for the Easter celebration so that our hearts might be purified and ready to enter into that joy of the resurrection.”