METHODISTS BEGIN 40-DAY FAST WITH ASH WEDNESDAY SERVICE
Posted on Friday February 24, 2023Story: Abigail
Ghartey & Emmanuel Ashong, Accra
Methodists in Ghana
joined the global Christian community on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, to
commence 40 days of prayer and fasting.
The period, which is
popularly known in Christian parlance as Lent, is a season when adherents of
the faith set themselves apart to remember 40 days leading to Easter. It is a
time for penance for all Christians. Although calculated differently among the
various Christian denominations, for the people called Methodists, the Lenten
period starts from Ash Wednesday through to Holy Saturday, excluding Sundays.
Members of the Church are
expected to fast, pray, and give alms to the needy during the period. Daily
devotionals are held over the period.
This year's Lent
commenced on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, with various Church Services in
Methodist Chapels across the Connexion. Dubbed Ash Wednesday, the Service
features the traditional imposition of ashes on the foreheads to worshippers –
a practice the Rt Rev Prof Joseph M. Y. Edusa-Eyison, the Methodist Bishop of
Northern Accra Diocese explains “is a powerful non-verbal experience which confronts
us with our mortality.”
Delivering a message at a
Service held on February 22, 2023 at the Asbury Dunwell Chapel, Conference
Office, Accra, the Methodist Bishop told congregants, who were mostly made up
of staff of the Conference Office and workers of other organisations in the
vicinity, that Lent is “a period that we all yearn to have a closer
relationship with God.
At the Wesley Cathedral
in Accra, the Methodist Bishop of Accra Diocese, the Rt Rev Emmanuel Borlabi
Bortey urged Christians to draw closer to God during the period and eschew evil
doing.
“It is our prayer that
this season of Lent, our God will grant us grace to resist every form of evil
in our lives and to turn to true faith in God which liberates us unto the path
of holy living to the glory of God”, he prayed.
Bishop Borlabi Bortey who
was delivering the address on behalf of the Presiding Bishop of The Methodist
Church Ghana, the Most Rev Dr Paul Kwabena Boafo, launched a daily devotional
Lent booklet themed "Living the Transformed Life in Jesus Christ through
Lent" to guide members during the Lenten period.