{"id":117045,"date":"2026-02-18T12:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T12:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/117045\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T12:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T12:46:07","slug":"ash-wednesday-draws-crowds-to-the-cathedral-in-scranton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/117045\/","title":{"rendered":"Ash Wednesday draws crowds to the Cathedral in Scranton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent at Scranton&#8217;s St. Peter&#8217;s Cathedral, where the faithful receive ashes.<\/p>\n<p>SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 Ash Wednesday marks the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnep.com\/article\/news\/local\/lackawanna-county\/diocese-of-scranton-priests-competing-for-a-cause-moving-from-the-altar-to-the-kitchen-lackawanna-county-father-cyril-edwards\/523-180a3616-d54f-4a59-8c19-9c43a4bc15ba\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">start of the Lenten season<\/a> for Christians around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Newswatch 16 stopped by St. Peter&#8217;s Cathedral in Scranton, where those in attendance received ashes as a sign of their mortality.<\/p>\n<p>Ash Wednesday is considered a holy day of prayer and fasting as Lent begins.<\/p>\n<p>The season of Lent lasts 40 days, leading up to the celebration of Easter on Sunday, April 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent at Scranton&#8217;s St. Peter&#8217;s Cathedral, where the faithful receive ashes. SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-117045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}