ASH WEDNESDAY MASS, 14th February 2024 (HE Memo#Y2.07)

HE Memo#Y2.07
29 Jan 2024

“Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;

Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.”

-Joel 2:12-13

I would like to invite the Higher Education community to the Eucharistic Celebration for Ash Wednesday on 14 February 2024 at the Church of the Gesù. Confessions will begin at 9:30 AM and the mass will be at 9:45 AM.

Fr James Gascon, SJ, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Family Ministry at the Loyola School of Theology, a Senior Pastoral Psychotherapist of the Ruben M Tanseco Center for Family Ministries (RMT-CEFAM), and the current Safeguarding Officer of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, will be the main celebrant and homilist.  All priests are invited to concelebrate. 

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten Season. In the Catholic tradition, we know of Lent as an invitation for us to look more closely at who we are, warts and all, before a Creator who loves us despite our sinfulness.  It is a time for repentance and forgiveness, a time to strive to be more compassionate and to choose the more loving thing to do.   

Undergraduate and graduate classes of the Schools of Humanities, Management, Education and Learning Design, Science and Engineering, and Social Sciences will be suspended from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM.  I’m inviting all faculty, students, administrators, professionals, and non-teaching staff to attend the Mass and join the rest of the Higher Education community in the observance of the beginning of Lent.

For the Ateneo Law School and the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, the APS Rockwell Campus will have its Ash Wednesday mass at 12:15 PM, to be presided by Fr Irvin Salanio, SJ. In the Ortigas Campus, for the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, the mass is at 12:00 PM, to be presided by Fr Errol Nebrao, SJ. The Ateneo School of Government may take part in any of these masses, especially that in the Church of the Gesu for reasons of proximity.  

I wish everyone a prayerfully reflective observance of Lent.