For millions of people around the world, today will be observed as Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent.

Many Christians will line up in church and get a smudge on the forehead in the shape of a cross. Clergy applying the ashes will quote Genesis: “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” a reminder of human mortality.

On Ash Wednesday, many Christians fast and begin penance by giving up something for Lent. Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is the last day of indulgence allowed before the period of fasting and penitence.

Lent is a period of spiritual preparation for Easter Sunday, the celebration of the resurrection, which falls this year on April 9.

In his 2023 message for Lent, Pope Francis urged Christians to focus on Jesus, read the scriptures and help those in need.

“We need to listen to Jesus,” Pope Francis said this week. “Lent is a time of grace to the extent that we listen to him as he speaks to us.”

On Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all Fridays during Lent, adult Catholics over the age of 14 traditionally abstain from eating meat including beef, chicken, pork, lamb, venison and most other meats. Fish, eggs, milk grains, fruit and vegetables are allowed.

That’s why many restaurant chains historically began to offer fish sandwiches. McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish was invented in 1962 in response to falling hamburger sales on Fridays during Lent.

Lenten fasting exceptions are made for pregnant women, those who are sick, the elderly and very young.

Lent is intended as a time of personal spiritual improvement.

“During this liturgical season, the Lord takes us with him to a place apart,” Pope Francis said. “While our ordinary commitments compel us to remain in our usual places and our often repetitive and sometimes boring routines, during Lent we are invited to ascend ‘a high mountain’ in the company of Jesus and to live a particular experience of spiritual discipline — ascesis — as God’s holy people.”

Reading the Bible and helping the needy are an important part of Lent.

“In addition to the Scriptures, the Lord speaks to us through our brothers and sisters, especially in the faces and the stories of those who are in need,” Pope Francis said.

“Do not take refuge in a religiosity made up of extraordinary events and dramatic experiences, out of fear of facing reality and its daily struggles, its hardships and contradictions,” the pope said.

“The light that Jesus shows the disciples is an anticipation of Easter glory, and that must be the goal of our own journey, as we follow ‘him alone,’” he said. “Lent leads to Easter: the ‘retreat’ is not an end in itself, but a means of preparing us to experience the Lord’s passion and cross with faith, hope, and love, and thus to arrive at the resurrection.”

Pope Francis said the purpose of Lenten penance is “overcoming our lack of faith and our resistance to following Jesus on the way of the cross.”

It’s a time of self-examination, he said.

“To deepen our knowledge of the Master, to fully understand and embrace the mystery of his salvation, accomplished in total self-giving inspired by love, we must allow ourselves to be taken aside by him and to detach ourselves from mediocrity and vanity,” Pope Francis said. “We need to set out on the journey, an uphill path that, like a mountain trek, requires effort, sacrifice, and concentration.”