Pope Leo XIV described the ashes placed on the faithful as symbolizing the weight of a world in flames. On Wednesday evening, he celebrated an Ash Wednesday Mass for the first time at the Basilica of Saint Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill.
At the ceremony opening the Lenten season, Pope Leo XIV called the ashes sprinkled on the heads of priests and believers the burden of a world ablaze, of cities destroyed by war, of trampled international law and justice among nations—“the ashes of entire ecosystems and of peace among peoples, the ashes of critical thinking and ancient local wisdom, the dust of the sacred that dwells within every creature.”
The pontiff said that the forty-day period leading up to Easter continues to carry a message of community-building, especially at a time when “we know it is increasingly difficult to unite people and make them feel they form one people—not in a nationalist or aggressive way, but in a community where everyone finds their place.”
Elected in May, Pope Leo XIV presided over the Ash Wednesday liturgy for the first time, following Pope Francis, who traditionally celebrated the Mass on Rome’s Aventine Hill according to the church calendar.
Like his predecessor, Leo XIV first held prayers at the Church of Saint Anselm before leading a penitential procession to the nearby Basilica of Saint Sabina, where he celebrated Mass with the imposition of ashes. Twenty-five cardinals and twenty bishops attended the ceremony.
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Major Penitentiary, was the first to sprinkle ashes on the Pope’s head, after which the Pope imposed ashes on the cardinals. The ashes were made from olive branches blessed by Pope Francis last Palm Sunday and later burned.
(MTI)
