ALLENTOWN, Pa. (WFMZ) — Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent for 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.<\/p>\n
It also marks the start of the Holy season for the first American Pope.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo XIV led his first Ash Wednesday procession and prayer service at the Vatican.<\/p>\n
In his first Lenten message as Pope — the Pontiff called on Christians to embrace listening, fasting, and community — while practicing what he described as an often overlooked form of abstinence.<\/p>\n
He urged those in attendance to refrain from words that offend or wound — saying harsh language, slander, and rash judgment should give way to kindness and respect.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo called on Christian communities to become places where those who suffer are welcome.<\/p>\n
The 40 days of lent invite Christians to sacrifice and slow down, before Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Pontiff made headlines in May as the first American pope, along with ties to our region as a graduate of Villanova University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. (WFMZ) — Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent for 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. It also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154],"class_list":["post-117711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117711","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=117711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}