Young men studying for the priesthood at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers assisted priests at several Archdiocese of New York parishes administer ashes on Ash Wednesday, helping to ensure that the faithful receive the special Lenten blessing. 

As in past years, one of the parishes was Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. 

Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent, the solemn 40-day season of fasting, prayer, and reflection in preparation for Easter. It serves as a day of repentance, when the faithful receive ashes on their foreheads in the shape of a cross, symbolizing a turn toward God. 

It begins the most penitential period of the Church calendar. Ashes represent mortality and repentance. Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and abstinence from meat, although it is not a holy day of obligation. The ashes are usually made from burning the palms used on the previous year’s Palm Sunday. 

Seminarians bring pastoral support to parishes across the archdiocese 

“This gives us a good pastoral experience, something we’ll be doing as priests in the future, God willing,” one of the seminarians, Gabriel Gojcaj, 24, told The Good Newsroom at the cathedral late morning Wednesday, February 18. “This is a good witness to the faith and to the priesthood, to be here to distribute ashes.” 

Gojcaj was helping Father Andrew King, the cathedral’s master of ceremonies, and other priests administer ashes. He also noted, “It’s been great; it’s a blessing to be able to do this, and parents have been bringing their babies for ashes.” Gojcaj, a first-year seminarian, was born in Mount Kisco and raised in Brewster. 

Richard Nuñez, 29, another seminarian assisting at the cathedral on Wednesday, said, “It’s been really nice, blessing the people with ashes. It helps me with my spiritual growth, and it helps me to understand more about our faith, the Catholic faith. It’s been a beautiful experience.” Nuñez, also in his first year at the seminary, was born in the Dominican Republic and emigrated with his family to the Bronx at age 14. 

Among the faithful blessed with ashes at the cathedral was Maria Sanchez, 42, a parishioner of St. Peter-St. Denis Church in Yonkers. The married mother of three told The Good Newsroom, “I was raised with the Catholic faith; this day is very important to me, to begin Lent by receiving the ashes. My faith is the basis of all my values and my strength.” 

Father Richard Veras, director of pastoral formation and professor of homiletics at St. Joseph’s Seminary, said by phone, “It’s a very beautiful experience for them, a very moving experience for the seminarians over the years.” He noted that the seminary also sends seminarians to parishes in the Dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Centre. 

“The priests are pretty busy on Ash Wednesday,” Father Veras noted, citing the gratitude expressed by clergy assisted by seminarians every Ash Wednesday.