EVERYONE is invited to join in a special Ash Wednesday Communion service at St Bride’s Co-led by Open Table (our LGBTIQIA+ Community) and Team Rector Miranda Threlfall-Holmes. We’ll be taking part in the international Glitter Ash initiative. Yes, you’ll get ashes - with a bit of purple glitter. It may sound frivolous, but it carries a serious message.

Glitter+Ash exquisitely captures the relationship between Ash Wednesday and Easter -- which is the relationship between death and new life. We do not live in fear of ash - of death - we place it on our foreheads for the world to see. We know that fear will rise, cramping our hearts. We also know that God specifically calls us not to project that fear onto the Other, the alien, the stranger in our midst. God insists that we look for the spark of life, of hope, in ourselves and one another.

This Ash Wednesday, we will make that spark easier to see. As Christians, we will witness to the gritty, glittery, scandalous hope that exists in the very marrow of our tradition. For more about the initiative visit www.queervirtue.com/glitter-ash-wednesday.