The Chancellor of the Apostolic Vicariate of Donkorkrom, in the Kwahu Afram Plains North District, Eastern Region of Ghana, Very Rev. Fr. Leopold Ettuh, has maintained that the Season of Lent is about choosing to atone for sins committed and giving up something for God to be happy.
He made this submission in a homily during the February 18, 2026 Ash Wednesday Mass at the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary-run school at Asikasu, Donkorkrom.
According to him, Ash Wednesday is a day when the Catholic faithful prepare themselves to enter into a period of deep reflection, “a period during which we will be thinking of our relationship with God and our relationship with our fellow human beings, to see whether the life that we have led tallies with the Commandments of God,” he underscored.
Adding, he upheld that in a situation where Christians find themselves wanting, and having fallen short of God’s graces on account of their sins, they must choose to do penance and do something pleasing to God.
Reflecting on the Second Reading from 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 where St. Paul reminds the faithful of Corinth that they are ambassadors of Christ, and alluding to the earthly ambassadors, whose principal duty is to reflect the people and the cultures they represent, the Priest urged the learners as well as the staff, who are also considered ambassadors of Christ, to live lives that reflect the one they represent – Christ.
“If you are ambassadors of Christ, you must live like Christ himself would; portraying him everywhere you go, and in all you do,” he buttressed.
The Chancellor further underpinned that the 40-day period of Lent invites all Christians to acknowledge their failings and effect a change in their lives. They must change from those things that take them far away from God, and by means of narrowing the gap between them and God, they must engage in the three practices outlined in the Gospel – Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving.
To the young minds, the homilist made them understand that they did not necessarily need to fast from food, but from all those bad habits that draw them far away from God. They should change their ways for the better, so that they too could gain the graces brought about by the holy Season of Lent.
He underlined that the Ashes that they were going to receive on their foreheads was going to be a sign of remorse for their sins.
By Sr. Sylvie Lum Cho, MSHR (DEPSOCOM-AVD)
