{"id":48545,"date":"2021-02-17T17:00:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-churches-alter-practices-for-ash-wednesday\/"},"modified":"2021-02-18T00:00:58","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T00:00:58","slug":"new-mexico-churches-alter-practices-for-ash-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-churches-alter-practices-for-ash-wednesday\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico churches alter practices for Ash Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Instead of priests applying ashes to foreheads in the shape of a cross, ashes will be sprinkled atop parishioners\u2019 heads to avoid person-to-person contact or distributed in individual containers to allow people to apply the ashes themselves, <em>The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The precautions are expected to complement state health guidelines that require masks and limit capacity for places of worship in Santa Fe County, which includes Santa Fe, to 33%.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf this pandemic has taught us anything, it\u2019s that we really do depend on each other,\u201d said the Rev. Tim Martinez, pastor and rector at the Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.<\/p>\n<p>Ash Wednesday, which launches the beginning of Lent, will have additional weight this year after about a year into the pandemic, which has resulted in widespread loss of life. It will also mark the return of in-person Mass at the cathedral, which has been closed since fall because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>The Roman Catholic Cathedral will be limited to 70 people on a first-come, first-served basis, and the cathedral will distribute ashes during 15-minute prayer services throughout the day.<\/p>\n<p>Santa Mar\u00eda de la Paz Catholic Community said its parishioners will apply the ashes themselves, or to members of their immediate family. Officials say ashes can be picked up during drive-up communion for people who are not attending Mass in person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t really sprinkle ashes on somebody\u2019s head at 6 feet away, and so that\u2019s why we came up with this idea of individual cups,\u201d said Brenda Weimer, liturgy director at the church.<\/p>\n<p>People who have excess ashes are encouraged to bury or sprinkle them on the ground as a way to return them to the earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of priests applying ashes to foreheads in the shape of a cross, ashes will be sprinkled atop parishioners\u2019 heads to avoid person-to-person contact or distributed in individual containers to allow people to apply the ashes themselves, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported. The precautions are expected to complement state health guidelines that require masks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48545"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}