POPE TO PRESIDE ASH WEDNESDAY STATION AT ST. SABINA

VATICAN CITY, MAR 3, 2000 (VIS) - The afternoon of March 8, Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent, Pope John Paul will preside at ceremonies at the stational basilica of St. Sabina on Rome's Aventine Hill.

The Lenten service will start at 4:30 p.m. at the nearby church of St. Anselm with a moment of prayer. This will be followed by a procession to St. Sabina Basilica, in which cardinals, archbishops, bishops, the Benedictine monks of St. Anselm's and the Dominican Fathers of St. Sabina's, as well as members of the lay faithful, will take part.

The Holy Father will then preside at the Liturgy of the Word in St. Sabina. Following his homily, ashes will be blessed and distributed. Cardinal Jozef Tomko, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and titular cardinal of St. Sabina, will preside at the Eucharistic liturgy. At the end of Mass, the Pope will impart his apostolic blessing.
Starting in the earliest centuries of the Church, Roman Stations or stational churches were those in which the Pope presided at liturgies on special occasions. The liturgy was usually preceded by a gathering of members of the hierarchy and the faithful who then processed to the designated church for the liturgy. In later years this practice became associated principally with the Lenten season.

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