How exactly those forty days are calculated has varied across the world and at different times in history. In Jerusalem in the fourth century, Lent was 40 fasting days, but those were spread over eight weeks because Saturday and Sunday were not fast days. The way we calculate Lent today, Sundays are not fast days, so Lent spreads over six and a half weeks, which means that it begins on Ash Wednesday.

  We all remember Ash Wednesday because of the ashes. They commemorate the ‘repentance in sackcloth and ashes’ which is a sign of mourning and penance throughout the Old Testament. We go up in turn to the altar and have ashes rubbed into our foreheads as the priest says some variant of ‘Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.’ This mark stays on us through the rest of the day, like a Hindu caste mark, unless prudence or fear make us wipe it off.

  Being reminded that we are dust does not mean being told we are worthless. What we are being told is that our value comes not from ourselves, but through us, from God. If people were light-bulbs, we would find it easy to understand this. A light-bulb does not produce light. It cannot. What a light-bulb can do (and a working light-bulb does do) is take the energy given to it from outside, and shine brightly by accepting and transforming what it has received.

  If we understand the true source of value, we avoid the perils of both pride and depression. If we shine brightly in this world, that does not come from within ourselves. It is because we deal faithfully with whatever power we have been given us – greater power or lesser power – as in the parable of the talents, the two good servants take what their master has given them and do something with it.

  Ash Wednesday falls on a Wednesday in most parts of the world, but not quite all. In Milan, the ashes are imposed on the first Sunday of Lent. In Vietnam, the celebration of the lunar New Year occasionally collides with Ash Wednesday, in which case Ash Wednesday is slightly postponed. For instance, in 2026 Ash Wednesday in Vietnam is celebrated on the Friday.

  It is a rule of the Church that saints are to be celebrated for what they are and what they do – to serve as examples of heroic virtue for us all – and not merely for what happens to them. There is no way that we can all go off and have visions of Our Lady, and the world would be a madhouse if we tried. So what of Bernadette? What heroic virtue has she that we should imitate? There are two: suffering, and humility.

  Bernadette was seriously ill with asthma all her life and she died young; but she never let illness be an excuse for anything – how many times do we, feeling a little unwell, use that as an excuse for being bad-tempered or simply not doing what we ought?

  To move away from Bernadette for a moment: imagine that you are a poor working-class boy with little education who happens to be good at kicking a ball about. Within a few years you find yourself earning more, annually, than your father earned in his entire lifetime. You receive attention, adulation, status – all that you could possibly desire. People emulate you. They hang on your every word. How would you feel? How would you act?

  Next, imagine that you are a poor girl – not even working-class, because your father hardly ever has any work – poor in a way that we can hardly conceive of – unintelligent and uneducated, and suddenly something happens to you. Overnight you are famous. People come in crowds to see you (sometimes the police have to control them). Everyone treats you with respect and admiration. They hang on your every word and ask you, over and over, questions about even the tiniest detail of your experience. They press coins into your family’s hands. You shut yourself up in a convent far from home, but even there you are constantly visited by bishops and other eminent persons who just want a quick look at you.

  Wouldn’t that turn your head? Just a little? Wouldn’t you think that there must be something about you that made you worth seeing? However tiny that something was?

  Here is Bernadette’s response, in conversation with one of the nuns:

  “What do you do with a broom?”

  “Why, sweep with it, of course.”

  “And then?”

  “Put it back in its place.”

  “Yes. And so for me. Our Lady used me. They have put me in my corner. I am happy there, and stay there.”

  Saint Bernadette Soubirous is patron saint of the sick, and rightly so. But if there is to be a patron saint of celebrities and footballers, Bernadette would be a wise choice for that task too.

  “Ancestor worship” is the way many of us were taught to think of (and look down on) the pagan religions of the East, just as “saint-worship” is what many Protestants despise us for. The response in both cases is the same: veneration is not worship, and if we remember that all veneration of created things is ultimately worship of the God who created them, all is well.

  As you might expect, the Second Reading and the Gospel at Mass today concentrate on the commandment ‘Honour your father and your mother’. The First Reading is the opening of the (long) hymn of praise and veneration of the ancestors and patriarchs of Israel: ‘Let us praise illustrious men, our ancestors in their successive generations. The Lord has created an abundance of glory, and displayed his greatness from earliest times.’

  Guido of Vicchio was born in the region of Tuscany in 1386 or 1387 and studied art in Florence while still a young man. Feeling drawn to religious life he entered the Dominican Order at the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole. This convent had recently been established as a house of regular observance by Blessed John Dominic whose name he took when he entered. He served as superior of San Domenico, promoted regular observance and handed on the fruits of his contemplation through his paintings for the altars at Fiesole and for the convent of San Marco in Florence. He was called to Rome by Pope Eugene IV to decorate two chapels, one in the Basilica of St. Peter and one in the Vatican. Pope Nicholas V also commissioned him to decorate his private chapel at the Vatican. His work is also found in the convent of San Domenico in Cortona and the cathedral at Orvieto. Pope Eugene IV wished to appoint him archbishop of Florence, but he declined in favor of Saint Antoninus. On February 18, 1455, he died in Rome at Santa Maria sopra Minerva and was buried there. The special quality of his painting earned him the title “Fra Angelico.”