During this season of Lent, we are asking everyone to depart the church after our Masses in silence, to better contemplate the mystery of the Mass and understand the sacredness of the action we just partook in.

“The main current of Lent must flow through the interior man, through hearts and consciences. The essential effort of repentance consists in this. In this effort, the human determination to be converted to God is invested with the predisposing grace of conversion and, at the same time, of forgiveness and of spiritual liberation… Penance is not just an effort, a weight, but it is also a joy. Sometimes, it is a great joy of the human spirit, a delight that other sources cannot bring forth.

In just a few days, we will enter into the Liturgical Season of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent is a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It calls us to reflect on the blessings God has given us and how we should journey to be more united with Him. Below are two perspectives on how to encounter God during Lent: one from Pope Francis and another from Pope Benedict XVI.

This will be a brief overview of the roles of the various people you may see ministering at the altar at OLMC.

Starting with the one in the middle seat whom everyone should recognize is the priest. The priest, during the celebration of the Mass, wears a chasuble, which matches the liturgical color of the Mass and often contains a single vertical stripe down the middle, sometimes splitting into three branches at the top of the chest. During the Mass, the priest is responsible for offering the Sacrifice and confecting the Eucharist. Only a priest (bishops are also priests) is capable of doing this, and the other ministers assist him in properly celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Every Sunday after the homily at Mass, along with Catholics all over the world, we recite the Profession of Faith, known as the Nicene Creed. During this Jubilee Year 2025, we celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which is the basis of the Creed we still use today. Just imagine 17 centuries during which, using these same words, billions of Christians have expressed their belief in God as the One who loves, the One who is beloved, and the One who is the Love between them. The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in the city of Nicaea, now Iznik, in the country of Türkiye (Turkey). Around 220 bishops attended, mostly from the Eastern churches.

Why do we use candles at the altar? One basic explanation is an appeal to fittingness. Imagine a fancy dinner, a wedding feast. It’s natural to solemnize the occasion with candles on the tables. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the greatest of nuptial feasts, so it makes sense we burn candles.

There’s also a prosaic explanation. The priest needs to see the text in the missal. In the days before electric light, stone church buildings without large, clear windows to admit natural light remained dim even on the brightest days. There’s also a more subtle explanation for the candles, which is that they are symbolic of Christ and His sacrificial nature.

Each year on February 2nd is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple, also known as Candlemas. The shortest and darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere is the winter solstice, usually around December 21. From that day on, the daylight grows until matching the darkness and night at the spring equinox, roughly around March 21. The midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox revolves around—you guessed it—February 2.

Even before Christ’s coming and long after his ascension, nature knew of him—indeed, the sun, moon, stars, and earth announce his mystery in concert, as it were. Today’s liturgical calendar thus incorporates not only the historical facts of Christ’s life—such as his incarnation in the womb of Mary, his birth in Bethlehem, his presentation in the Temple, and his Paschal Mystery—but also elements of God’s own creation.