This year Lent began with ashes in Northern Ontario, just as it does every year and everywhere. But this year’s ashes up north are a little different because they’re likely the most ecumenical ashes in Canada.

When is the best time to repent? A couple of weeks ago this question came up during my telephone conversation with a friend about Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17. Christians normally associate the word “repent” with Lent because we think of Lent as a special time of reflection, a time of penitence and a time to return to the Lord.

Forty days in the desert — that’s our usual starting point for Lent. But we would prefer to choose our desert, and most years we do. We decide what we will give up for Lent. We choose spiritual reading, take on volunteering and charitable acts, memorize a new prayer, set aside time for meditation. Diligent Catholics like to plan our desert experience.

This year Development and Peace knows what it’s up against. 

COVID has not cancelled Lent, nor Ash Wednesday, though a few things will feel a little different.

Remember the old fairy tales?  They are told, or re-told, by great story-tellers like the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and my favourite, Andrew Lang — who, back in the 19th century, gathered stories from around the world into the Red Fairy Book, Green Fairy Book and plenty of other colours. 

It was a trying Lent. The Church has lived something historically unprecedented, as Catholics worldwide were able to go to church nowhere and everywhere. Friends and family shared the joy of seeing Mass around the world and the grief of fasting from receiving communion, even on Good Friday, even on Easter Sunday.

EDMONTON -- At 85, most priests would be content to mark six decades of priesthood with quiet retirement. But not Fr. Don Stein.

As you read this we will be in the last few weeks of our Lenten promises. If you are like me you have probably slipped once or twice.

The Church in Toronto has a Lenten treasure that ends not with a whimper but a bang.

Families lived frugally in the rural Nova Scotia community I called home until early adulthood.

VATICAN CITY -- Lent is a time for deeper dialogue with God through prayer, for renewed gratitude for God's mercy and for increased compassion for people whose lives are under attack, Pope Francis said.

Alms, prayer and fasting are the broad categories the Church requires in the season of Lent. But let your heart and your devotion lead you over to the bookshelf, and you might find a path into the formal disciplines of Lent through spiritual reading.

After being asked to dig deeper last year to support the most vulnerable in society, parishioners across the Archdiocese of Toronto are being urged to be just as generous as ShareLife kicks off its 2020 campaign on Feb. 26, Ash Wednesday.

As Christmas and its light fades from our memories we enter a period of reflection — the season of Lent.