The entrance to the threshold of 40 days

     Ash Wednesday is the entrance of the forty holy days that the Church offers us every year to prepare with greater faith and commitment to the Easter. For this great event there are three paths takes us ahead. All these paths lead us to the same goal. The three ancient words: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
    

These are words that come from afar, secret access codes to a new life. Prayer, that is the desert, listening, silence. Fasting, that is, sobriety, going back to basics that is looking back to oneself. Charity, solidarity and sharing that with our brethren with whom we live.

In this journey we are not alone: Christ is with us. He brings his passion and death all our lives and leads the procession of souls at the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. Sin has closed the doors, but opens with Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection. The choirs of the saints are our brothers who have preceded us in the heavenly city, and by tradition the Church prays at the beginning of Lent with the solemn litany. The saints intercede for us and waiting to embrace us. We ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem, and you enter through a door that is Christ himself. Christ opens the door. Christ is the gate of heaven.