Catholics flock to churches on Ash Wednesday

Catholics flock to churches on Ash Wednesday. Catholics observe Ash Wednesday rites at the Baclaran Church in Parañaque City on March 5. The religious tradition marks the beginning of the Lenten Season when Catholics commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Filipino Catholics flocked to churches early Wednesday to have their foreheads dabbed with ash to commemorate the start of Lent, the 40-day period marking Jesus Christ's passion and death.

A report on GMA News TV's News To Go said people crowded the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran to hear early morning Mass and lined up to wait for the priest to make the sign of the Cross on their foreheads with the ash.

Police tightened security in churches against petty thieves and criminals who may take advantage of the occasion to steal bags and belongings of Catholic faithful going to church, it added.

Meanwhile, in his Lenten message, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, encouraged Catholics to practice "poverty from material, moral and spiritual aspects."

"This Lenten season, Christ invites all, but especially the laity, to oppose degrading and dehumanizing poverty and to embrace humanizing and sanctifying poverty," Villegas said. "In other words, he invites us to imitate his example. We fight poverty with poverty only because Christ has shown us the way."

The archbishop also said he disapproves the "ever-growing influence" of consumerism.

For his part, Palo Archbishop John Du said Lenten activities in typhoon-hit Leyte will focus on seeking the spiritual well-being of everyone within the Church.

“We really have to prepare the people spiritually that they would be strengthened and nourished not only in terms of material assistance… there should also be spiritual component,” Du said in a separate statement.

“We would like to at least give meaning to the situation and that the Lord is going to be seen in this situation. The face of Jesus would be seen in the face of poverty,” he said.

He said the 40-day period should be an opportunity for Catholics to sacrifice their "excessive lifestyle," while typhoon victims have recently suffered.

"Suffering without offering is different… The sacrifice is already there. But (we need) to incorporate that into the kind of redemptive, to make it into an offering," Du said.

A separate report on GMA News TV's News To Go on Wednesday reminded Catholics to observe abstinence and fasting on Ash Wednesday. — GMA News