Welcome
Welcome to St. Paul’s United Methodist Church of Oxnard website! We’re delighted you’ve come to visit us and would like to invite you to join us in worship any Sunday at St. Paul’s. Our hearts, minds and doors are always open and we look forward to warmly welcoming you to our church family.
We invite you to consider joining us in ministry through prayer, worship, study, and service. As members of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church of Oxnard, we profess our faith in Christ and pledge our “prayers, presence, gifts, and service” to uphold this church. We offer you John Wesley’s simple yet powerful invitation, “If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.”
Service of Ashes, Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010 , 7:00 pm
In the Western Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance marking the first day of Lent, the season of preparation for the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. It occurs forty-six days (forty days not counting Sundays) before Easter, falling on a different date each year because it is dependent on the date of Easter [Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the Paschal Full Moon.] Ash Wednesday can occur as early as February 4 or as late as March 10.
Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of repentance. The ashes used are often gathered after the Palm Crosses from the previous year’s Palm Sunday are burned.
Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent’s way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults. An ancient example of one expressing one’s penitence is found in Job 42:3-6. Job says to God: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (vv. 5-6, Standard Revised Version). Other examples are found in several other books of the Bible including, Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13, and Hebrews 9:13.