On the first day of Autumn, we start our journey towards Easter. Today the school gathered in the gymnasium (due to suspect weather) to take part in a ceremony that goes back centuries – Ash Wednesday. Below are excerpts from co-chair of our Special Character Committee, Loretta Knights’ address to the school:
Today is a reminder of the start of the of lent season. It is a reminder of not only the time of our Lord’s passion, death and resurrection, but of a time to take a deep breath and a step back. We need times of silence. With all the noise around us as we live in this advanced, fast, technical world of the 21st century. In these moments of silence we have time to think, reflect and heal. This could be called pondering, thinking, or even known as a form of prayer. Lent is the time for these things as we turn away from past deeds we may have done and regretted.
I challenge you this year. I challenge you to think outside the box and try something new. Outside the norm. Outside your comfort zone.
Some example could be giving up wifi at certain times in your day, limiting your time of scrolling through your phone at midnight. To donating one piece of clothing to a charity each week. To giving up your bed. These challenges and fasting’s you set for lent this year can both improve the community around you and your mentality. It’s a true test of your self-control.
It’s the time of year where you can become closer to God and with your faith or making yourself a better person, or even improving other people lives around you through Almsgiving.
Consider this poem by Jan L. Richardson
Rend Your Heart – A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so that you can see
its secret chambers,
the hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.
Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart’s walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those you have yet
to find.
It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering
for trusting the breaking
for tracing the tear
that will return you
to the One who waits
who watches
who works within
the rending
to make your heart
whole.
