Dear Parents and Carers,

Today we celebrated Ash Wednesday. The journey to becoming fully alive begins with Ash Wednesday. As we journey through Lent with its forty days, we intend to become more and more awake, more and more conscious, more and more alive. Our hope is to be as fully present as we can be for the feast of Easter.

During this season of Lent new life is waking from its winter death, the sun’s strength returns, and the natural world begins to vibrate more and more. An introduction to new life emerges.

Traditionally, the time of Lent is a time for praying more, and has a tone of somberness. Giving up something for Lent as a spiritual discipline has been practiced for centuries. When many of us were children, we might remember giving up lollies for Lent. And, it seemed like a real sacrifice. As we grew up, it was often more difficult to decide what thing to give up, to make Lent a special season - to get our attention and to prepare ourselves for deeper sacrifices.

When I reflect on this I wonder if the giving up became the focus rather than the intention of becoming more alive. In the Old Testament reading for Ash Wednesday we hear Isaiah (Chapter 58) urging people to realize that it is kindling relationship with God, aligning with the energy of mercy and compassion and joy, rather than any stipulated action that is the true goal of Lent.

Lent offers us all a very special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism. In our busy world, Lent provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon our patterns, to pray more deeply, experience sorrow for what we’ve done and failed to do, and to be generous to those in need.

And so we are led, in Lent, to, the place of transition, of waiting, and of not knowing. To help us in our experience of space and time we must use symbol, story and metaphor, poetry, prose and song, as tools and vehicles on the journey toward a deepening relationship with God and others. We use symbols to make things more meaningful, to communicate or represent something below the surface. In other words, symbols help us to remember and understand. The word “symbol” comes from two Greek words that mean, "to throw together," thus binding together an abstraction and an illustration and directing our thinking.

On Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, as our foreheads are marked with ash, we hear the words spoken: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. The symbol of the ashes reminds us of the reality of death and is intended to help us to enter into a time of self-examination, confession and penitence. As we search and begin to look at who we are “warts” and all, we must enter into death. We must die to the person we think we are, that we pretend to be, that we wish we were, the masks we present to the world. Through this death we can come to new life and enter more fully into deep relationship with God and our neighbour.

God bless.

Rachel Smith
Principal