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Showing posts from March, 2013

Jewelry for Lent?

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For Western Christianity, the first day of Lent, a movable fast that begins forty-six days before Easter, is Ash Wednesday.  For many denominations, this day is commemorated by the wearing of ashes on the forehead in a cross shape ~ a reminder of our human frailty, and of mourning and repentance before God.  The ashes are usually gathered from the burning of palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday, the day that announces Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, also the day that marks the beginning of His Passion. Lent is a time of preparation for the celebration of Christ's glorious Resurrection, and is marked by prayer, penance, repentance, fasting/self-denial and almsgiving.  You may be thinking, if Lent is such a serious, contemplative time, a time when believers "give up" or "offer up" something for these forty days, why is this post about jewelry? The answer is that, for many of us, our religious jewelry ~ our crosses, crucifixes, rosa