Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten journey that will take us to the cross and beyond. May your journey be fruitful, and may your Easter be blessed as a result.

Each day during Lent, I will be offering a Psalm and a prayer to read which I hope will serve as a link between you, the reader, and the rest of the faith community.

Psalm 1 (The Message)
1How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.
2-3 Instead you thrill to God's Word, you chew on Scripture day and night. You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.
4-5 You're not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust — Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people.
6 God charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row.

Prayer of Saint Augustine of Hippo (AD 354 -430)
O Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it,
to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord,
and spare Your servant from strange sins.