You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts.

Today is Wednesday, February 17th, 2021.

Today is also the first day of Lent.

Today is Ash Wednesday.

Now, my challenge for you today's sprouts is to if at all possible,

attend an Ash Wednesday service to go to Holy Mass. If you remember, there are many beautiful and symbolic things that you will see at an Ash Wednesday service. And we're going to talk about a few of

them. So first of all, when you walk into the church, you're going to notice that the colors have

changed. Yesterday, we were in ordinary time, which we mark with the color green. But today,

we have entered Lent. And Lent, we mark with the color purple.

Lent is a time of prayer, fasting, and repentance.

So we symbolize that with the color purple.

Now I want to talk about one thing that happens at the Ash Wednesday service, a remarkable part of

Mass that we only do once a year on Ash Wednesday, and I bet you know what it is. It is receiving

ashes on our forehead. Now, why do we do this? So just to remind you of how this all happens, in the first half of Mass,

Father will bless the ashes, and then he will have several people from the congregation come up and

help distribute the ashes. Everybody, no matter how old you are, whether you've received your first

communion or not, even babies, we all approach and either the priest or one of the ministers

will put the ashes on their thumb and then they will raise their thumb to our forehead,

trace across on our forehead with the black ashes and they will say these words.

They will say, remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

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