The Epiphany season ends on Ash Wednesday. We mark the beginning of Lent with ash on our foreheads. This cross is an echo of our baptismal anointing, when we were buried with Christ. The ash is a chilling reminder of our mortality, but because our death is now in Christ, our endings are beginnings. The Lenten disciplines of acts of kindness, prayer and fasting are tools of discipleship that can lead us to renewal as we bury all that is holding us back from being truly alive. --from Sundays and Seasons