Gulf Pine
CATHOLIC
VOLUME 32 / NUMBER 13
February 27, 2015
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent
Catholics packed churches all across the diocese on Feb. 18 to receive blessed ashes. Bishop Roger Morin celebrated noon Mass at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Cathedral. At left, Bishop Morin says a prayer of blessing over the ashes, which come from the burned palm branches that were used for last year’s Palm Sunday
Masses. Assisting the bishop is Deacon Roberto Jimenez. At right, Bishop Morin distributes ashes to a congregant.
Photos/Terry Dickson
Return with tears to God’s loving
embrace during Lent, pope says
BY CINDY WOODEN
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Lent is a journey of purification and penance, a movement that
should bring one tearfully back to the loving arms of the merciful Father, Pope Francis
said at an Ash Wednesday Mass that began with a procession on Rome’s Aventine Hill.
After walking from the Benedictine monastery of St. Anselm to the Dominican-run
Basilica of Santa Sabina Feb. 18, Pope Francis celebrated Mass. He received ashes on
the top of his head from Cardinal Jozef Tomko, titular cardinal of the basilica, and
distributed ashes to the Benedictines, the Dominicans, his closest aides and a family of
five.
When a priest places ashes on one’s head or forehead, he recites: “Remember that
you are dust and to dust you shall return” or “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
Both, Pope Francis said, are “a reminder of the truth of human existence: We are
limited creatures, sinners always in need of repentance and conversion. How important
it is to listen and accept these reminders.”
In his homily before the ashes were distributed, the pope encouraged Catholics to
ask God for “the gift of tears in order to make our prayer and our journey of conversion
more authentic and without hypocrisy.”
SEE POPE-ASHES, PAGE 8
Patriarchs’ Lenten messages focus on
struggles of Mideast Christians
BY DOREEN ABI RAAD
Catholic News Service
BEIRUT (CNS) -- The Middle East is suffering a “Way of the Cross” that is the
greatest tragedy since World War II, Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregoire III Laham
said in a Lenten message about suffering.
He said the church, despite its efforts, is having difficulty meeting the growing
needs it faces in the region.
“We fail in front of the suffering of our people in all walks of life, Christians and
Muslims. It’s a universal suffering,” he said.
“We as pastors are with our people, at their side, in front of them, behind them,”
Patriarch Laham said, adding that it is “as if we wash the feet of those who are suffer-
ing as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.”
“We are in the fifth year of the Way of the Cross,” especially in Syria, Iraq and the
Palestinian territories and also in Lebanon, “which is affected in a tragic way by war,
which rages around it,” Patriarch Laham said.
“This is a tragedy of the greatest tragedies of history --- not just in the region, but
in the world -- since World War II,” he said.
SEE LENT-PATRIARCHS, PAGE 11
