The Saint Patrick High School community gathered to celebrate Ash Wednesday with a liturgy service on February 21, 2007. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which serves as preparation for Easter Sunday. Students and faculty had their foreheads marked with ashes to humble their hearts and serve as a reminder that life passes away on Earth. This message is imparted with the words "Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return."

The distribution of ashes comes from a ceremony of ages past. Christians who had committed grave faults performed public penance. On Ash Wednesday, the Bishop blessed the hair shirts, which they were to wear during the forty days of penance, and sprinkled over them ashes made from the palms from the previous year. Then, the penitents were turned out of the church because of their sins -- just as Adam, the first man, was turned out of Paradise because of his disobedience. The penitents did not enter the church again until Maundy Thursday after having won reconciliation by the toil of forty days' penance and sacramental absolution.

Saint Patrick High School is Chicago’s oldest Catholic high school for boys. Founded in 1861 by the Christian Brothers, Saint Patrick has remained at the forefront of education, administering to the needs of young men in the Chicagoland area for nearly 150 years.

Information from “Catholic Online” www.catholic.org was used in this release.