By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

Area churches on Wednesday will trade the merriment of Carnival, replete with its Mardi Gras parades and balls, for the relative asceticism of six weeks of Lent.

“The emphasis for us is we confront our mortality and confess our sins before God,” the Rev. Marty Boddie, pastor of First United Methodist, 6501 Washington St., Groves, said Tuesday. He said his church will offer his flock of some 300 a 6 p.m. Wednesday service that will include Scripture readings, liturgy and some prayers in union.

Then, Boddie said, those present will file down the aisle and hear his words, “Repent and believe the Gospel,” before ashes are imposed.

Boddie, a pastor for more than 30 years, said there was a time when few Methodist churches participated in Ash Wednesday. That has changed. Nowadays, Methodist churches embrace the calls to prayer, fasting and self-denial that Lenten observance can demand.

“Ashes are a powerful way to call us to penance and reconciliation,” he said.

The Rev. Margaret Williams, pastor at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Port Neches, said her church will offer ashes and services scheduled at 7:30 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. The services will include the imposition of ashes and the Holy Eucharist.

She said the church would also offer Bible study at 5:30 p.m. Sunday through Lent. All are welcome.

That study will be sustained with a cup of soup for those who attend.

“When we have gone through this time of reflection, we will have grown closer to God,” she said. “We will go through the desert time of Lent and consider how we are living our lives.

“God is calling on us to make changes. We will reflect on God’s great sacrifice he paid for us.”

She said that would demand tough, introspective questions for worshipers to consider, such as, “How are we living our lives?”

Lent begins Wednesday and continues through Holy Thursday, which falls on March 29 this year. Easter follows April 1.

Many Western Christian churches embrace Lent as a solemn religious period used to prepare for Easter Sunday. Participating Christians pray, do penance, give alms and, in general, deny themselves, especially through fasting.

Most Rev. Curtis J. Guillory, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, said through Lent we “discipline our desires.”

Guillory will celebrate Mass at noon Wednesday at the St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica in Beaumont, and said he will recall a story about Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, who said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

“That’s what Lent’s about,” Guillory said. “Our souls get dusty like our house.”

To cleanse the soul, he said, requires more intense prayer, which includes not only speaking but listening, reflecting on preparation for Easter.

“The Lord speaks to us all the time,” he said, “sometimes in a whisper.”

Lent, he said, is a time to listen.