Four Ash Wednesday services will be held at the University’s Evans Chapel Feb. 6.
There will be Ecumenical services at 7:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. and Roman Catholic services at noon and 9 p.m.
“I am trying to make it convenient for students, faculty and staff to attend Ash Wednesday services without leaving campus,” says University Chaplain Gary Brower.
Two Roman Catholic services have been held on that day for several years, but Brower says he wanted to supplement that with an Ecumenical offering.
“My goal is to provide alternative services for non-Catholic Christians, as well as those Catholics who cannot make one of the other service times.”
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40-day period (excluding Sundays) that precedes Easter. It is a period of participating in the death and resurrection of Jesus through “prayer, repentance and self-denial,” Brower says.
During services, ashes mark the foreheads of participants in the shape of a cross, a sacrificial symbolism referring to penance.