Palms to ashes: Students help prepare for Lent’s arrival
Students at Saint Alphonsus Liguori Catholic School in Prospect Heights helped prepare the way for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent with the burning of blessed palms Tuesday outside the school.
Associate Pastor Slawomir Kurc oversaw the somewhat smoky and overcast ceremony surrounded by most of the Catholic school’s 180 students.
The Palm branches, blessed on Palm Sunday 2024, were burned to create the ashes that will be placed on believers’ foreheads Wednesday to mark Ash Wednesday. The use of last year’s palms connects the end of one Lenten season with the beginning of the next.
Christians mark Lent as the 40-day period of prayer, fasting and giving leading up to Easter Sunday.
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