Day of Ashes

Yesterday was the Day of Ashes or Ash Wednesday which is the begining of Lent for Catholics. I was sent to St. Mary's Cathedral in downtown Winnipeg to get something for the paper. Unfortunately it didn't make it into the paper. Must have been a space issue.

Regardless, I was quite happy with the photos I got. It was a noon hour Mass and I had actually never been into the St. Mary's Cathedral before... very beautiful little space they have. I had also never covered Ash Wednesday before, though I did know that the faithful would be doing something like communion, but not communion.

After trying unsuccessfully to get a worthy photo of the procession that went up the main isle I started to move into a position that would allow me to get photos of people getting the ashes put onto their foreheads. At the last second I looked at the Archbishop and the other priests that were gathered around the table that held the apparatus for the ceremony and realized that they were performing the ritual on themselves first. I managed to get ONE frame off before it was over and at the time I didn't think anything of it because they immediately got into position to perform the ritual on the rest of the parish.

When I looked at the images later on I realized that the one and only shot of the Archbishop of Winnipeg James Weisgerber was THE SHOT.

Too bad it didn't make it into the paper.