Today is Ash Wednesday

NIGERIAN Christians will today join their counterparts the world over to observe this year’s Ash Wednesday that marks the beginning of lenten season. 

  In a statement, the Director of Social Communications, Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, Msgr. Gabriel Osu, said: “the lenten season is a period of 40 days during which Christians are encouraged to intensify prayers, abstinence, fasting and alms giving.

  “In Catholic churches all over the world, the faithful are expected to receive ash on their foreheads as a sign of repentance and a reminder that we all came from ash and will someday return to ash. Here in the Archdiocese of Lagos, the faithful would be led into the Lenten season by the Archbishop of Lagos, His Grace, Alfred Adewale Martins, at the Holy Cross Cathedral.”

  Explaining the essence of the season, Osu noted: “At this period of Lent, we are all expected to draw nearer God by constant prayer, forsaking sin and being at peace with our fellow men. It is a season of renewal of our faith in our creator by renouncing all fleshy desires that tend to weigh us down from purifying our spirit for the greater glory of God.”