Scenes from Ash Wednesday mass at one of South Florida’s oldest Catholic churches

Pews were packed at an Ash Wednesday mass led by Miami’s Archbishop Thomas Wenski at Broward’s oldest Catholic Church earlier this afternoon.

The mass, held at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Fort Lauderdale, marks the beginning of the holy season of Lent for Catholics and Christians, a time for reflection and repentance ahead of the celebration of Easter.

“Lent is a season of grace and salvation,” said Wenski during his homily at the mass. “A good confession should be a part of every Catholic’s lenten observance.”

Wenksi explained that during the 40-day period of lent, Catholics will revisit the sacrament of ‘penance’, or the way believers receive forgiveness for their wrongdoings. One’s personal changes, made through prayer and fasting, must come first before fixing other worldly problems, Wenski said.

“Lent reminds us ... that the world we live in cannot be helped in any other way than by our repentance,” Wenski said. “We can complain about the state of the world .. What can we change without first changing ourselves?”

For Catholics over the age of 14, Ash Wednesday is also a day to abstain from meat, and a day of fasting — one full meal and two small meals, with nothing eaten between meals — for adults ages 18-59, according to the Archdiocese.

Though for Catholics lent is a time for external sacrifices, it is also a time to “starve your sins, not just your stomach,” Wenski said. And though the Catholic Church gets a lot of flack about “guilt trips,” he said, lent is more about turning back to one’s faith.

“Lent is not about laying a guilt trip on us, it’s about bringing us to make a reality check, an examination of conscience.”

The midweek noon mass was widely attended. Believers received ashes on their foreheads in the sign of a cross as a symbol of their willingness to live life according to the gospels, Wenski said. The ashes are created the day before the mass by burning palm branches across throughout parishes in the Archdiocese in Miami.

St. Anthony Catholic Church, dedicated in December of 1922, is Broward’s first Catholic Church, credited with pioneering Catholic education in the area, opening its private school in 1926. In 1932, the school became the first Catholic high school in Broward County with grades one through twelve, according to its website.

This story was produced with financial support from Trish ad Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.