The Lenten season begins with four services on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at Evans Chapel.
Ecumenical services will be held at 7:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m., and Roman Catholic services will be at noon and 9 p.m.
This is the second year that University Chaplain Gary Brower has supplemented traditional Roman Catholic masses with two additional ecumenical Ash Wednesday services at Evans Chapel.
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.