St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Chester, Vermont

The Ash Wednesday Liturgy with Holy Eucharist

March 5, 2025

 

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. We gather to begin our Lenten fast of 40 days. Sundays are not counted as part of those forty days. The term fast refers not specifically to food, but rather to any activity or busyness of mind and heart setting up a barrier to our realization of God’s spirit working In us. Thus it includes not simply what we “give up for Lent,” but rather what we take on and open ourselves to, opening ourselves to see ourselves, bith as individuals and as a community, growing spiritually as Illuminators.

 

The ashes offered are signs of our mortality and thus of our giving up of the barriers, our control impulses we erect to protect the fortress-like fences defending our identity, and its selfimportance. Those who wish the ashes will be invited forward for their imposition.