Suburban Catholic school students prepare for Ash Wednesday

Students at St. Theresa School in Palatine and other Catholic schools across the suburbs helped prepare for Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent with palm-burning ceremonies Tuesday.

Braving temperatures well below freezing, the St. Theresa students gathered around the Rev. Tim Fairman as he and seminarian Rob Ryan presided over a fire pit filled with burning palm leaves. Leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations typically are burned to create the ashes used on Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a solemn 40-day period devoted to reflection, prayer, spiritual preparation and fasting before Easter. As an outward expression of faith, Catholics on Ash Wednesday may have ashes applied to their foreheads in the shape of cross.

Other palm burning ceremonies took place Monday and Tuesday at St. Thomas Villanova School in Palatine, St. Alphonsus Liguori School in Prospect Heights, St. Bede School in Ingleside, St. Gilbert School and eight other schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago.