Lent in Southern Pines, North Carolina

Just after noon on Wednesday, I drove down East Vermont Ave. in Southern Pines, N.C., near my home, and noticed vehicles lining both sides of streets around St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. I wondered why a crowd gathered at the church. Then, it dawned on me: “It’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.”

I attend a church that does not follow the formal celebrations that many old-line churches do.

I thought of the folk inside St. Anthony’s. Most would leave with a fingerprint of ashes on their foreheads. A priest would have said, as they received their marks from him, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” He may alternatively have said, “Repent and believe the Gospel.”

The ashes are supposed to come from palm branches that were blessed on the precious year’s Palm Sunday. In ancient times, ashes were used to express grief. Priests administer ashes during Mass and all are invited to accept the ashes as a visible symbol of penance.

“Lent” occurs 46 days before Easter. Forty of those days are “fasting days.” The six Sundays among those 46 days are not fasting days. The “40 days” has to do with Christ fasting for 40 days in the wilderness before he began his public ministry.

Lent leads up to Easter Sunday. The English word “Lent” is a shortened form of the Old English word “len(c)ten,” meaning “spring season.”

Whether you formally celebrate Lent or not, it’s a good time of year to consider the implications of Easter, or as many call it: Resurrection Day.