With Easter arriving on April 22 this year, Ash Wednesday falls on March 6, this coming Wednesday.

Traditionally at St. Louise School, starting on Ash Wednesday and continuing throughout the Lenten season's six weeks, the students are immersed in the three pillars of Lent - praying, fasting, and almsgiving. The praying will begin at 1:45 on the 6th in the form of an Ash Wednesday Liturgy. 

This year, the simple lunch we will serve to all the students (and faculty) in place of the typical filling lunch packed from home will be rice and beans. We have been serving soup lunches in past Ash Wednesdays, but wanted to shake things up a bit with a meal that is meatless yet has protein, doesn't have as many allergic issues, and truly will give your children a sense of how little many in our world have in which to subsist. We expect every student (from full day PreK through 8th grade) and every school staff member (from teachers to principals) to participate in the simple rice and beans lunch. Students can have their usual drink at lunch time (school milk or their own beverage) and if students are already allowed by their teachers to bring daily, mid-morning snacks, these snacks could still be brought and eaten on the 6th. If there is an allergic/dietary reason why your child cannot eat white rice and pinto beans for lunch, please send a medically-explained excuse note to your child's teacher and substitute a bare-bones meal from home. Oh, and by the way, the excuse of "my child doesn't like rice and beans" isn't a medically-explained excuse. ;-)

Finally, the third pillar of Lent will be highlighted during Ash Wednesday when we ask your children, as they walk through the lunch line in the parish hall picking up their bowl of rice and beans, to give a donation. We are suggesting that each student bring $5 cash which we will donate to Seattle's Union Gospel Mission. ($5 is a guesstimate of how much would have been spent on a filling lunch. Your child can always donate more.) The  Union Gospel Mission (UGM) will be the recipient of our school community's almsgiving this year. Already we have collected $550 in donations to UGM when we held our recent Faculty Bake Sale. We hope to donate another $1,500 or so from your family's $5 lunch donations.  Motivated by our Christian faith, the Union Gospel Mission provides extensive 360-degree support and recovery services for homeless men, women, and children throughout King County. Your child heard from UGM yesterday at an assembly. Ask your son or daughter to explain why it's a good thing to donate to agencies such as the Union Gospel Mission. This video also explains. 

More Lenten information may be found in today's red envelope, where you'll find the parish's calendar of the various liturgies and events taking place throughout the parish from March 6 through April's Holy Week.  The Lenten season is a terrific time to rejuvenate your prayer lives and to create and/or continue some memorable family practices, such as attending Stations of the Cross.