Students of St Joseph’s School and Nukutere College gathered at the St Joseph’s Cathedral in Avarua with teachers and parents marking the beginning of the lent season.

Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter.

Bishop Reynaldo Bunyi Getalado who led several masses on Wednesday said the ashes symbolise the dust from which God used to create mankind.

“It's a season where we try to prepare ourselves for the Easter celebration and the highlights in the Holy Week,” he told this newspaper.

Students of St Joseph’s School were also at the St Joseph’s Cathedral. 25030502

The mass on Wednesday saw Catholics praying for the government, for peace in the nation, and to heal those who are sick, a tradition that is practiced in the Catholic faith every year during this season.

Bishop Getalado urged everyone that they should also join Jesus on the resurrection, be resurrected from sinfulness, jealousy, pride, to become a better person.

“That is the most essential of them,” he added,

Bishop Reynaldo Bunyi Getalado conducts the mass at the St Joseph’s Cathedral on Wednesday. 25030505

The mass also saw the majority of students from Catholic Church schools with some who are not Catholic, but are Christians.

“We also give them the ashes, it's a symbol of your self-determination that on this Easter, it is Lent season.

“We try to be prayerful, giving and fasting, and the aim of that is to discipline us so that we become a new person, a new, better Christian than before. That is the essence of that.”