Catholic LentAt this time of year, back home in Ecuador, parents plan vacations to go and enjoy Holy Week with family. As a family, we generally spend these days enjoying each other's company on the beaches near our city. Being born and originally from Ecuador, a predominantly Catholic country, I observed that for parishioners the journey towards Holy Week is very serious. To learn about the importance and rituals that take place during this time called Lent, I asked a Catholic friend to introduce me to the practices and allow me to take a look. As it was explained to me, Lent is the time of conversion, to prepare for Easter. It is an opportunity to repent of sins. It feels like a time of reflection where Catholics try to fix their mistakes to become better people. For conversion, Catholics want to give their whole hearts to the Lord in fasting, weeping and mourning. The conversion period lasts forty days, beginning on Ash Wednesday. On this day, parishioners go to mass and receive the sign of the cross on their foreheads marked with ashes. The colors observed for the decoration of the church and the vestments of the priest are purple which signifies mourning and penance. The ashes are made from blessed palm trees used on Palm Sunday of the previous year; they are baptized with holy water and perfumed with incense. When the faithful collect the ashes, the priest who is the one who marks the cross tells them a remnant saying: dust you are and dust you will become. The rest is there to help achieve a spirit of humility and sacrifice. The distribution of ashes comes from a ceremony from times gone by. Christians who had committed serious sins performed public penance. Ash Wednesday,...... middle of paper...... are here to remind you how much love God has for you. She says that God sent his beloved child as a sacrifice to die for the sins of the world so that we could all be saved. She explains to me that even though it happened, humans tend to forget it, and so the images are there to remind us how we can be better people and how we can offer our pain for recovery of others. My friend explains to me I think the idea of ​​being free from sin is to achieve eternal life, and that it is a personal accomplishment. Although I observe groups of people walking from station to station, she lets me know that usually families spend this time of year together and do the various Lint events as a group, or join their groups prayer to navigate the events. Works CitedJoel 2:12-18Catholic OnlineGenesisCatholic Online,EtymologiesCatholic News Agency