Catholics across SE Wisconsin join in prayer to celebrate Ash Wednesday

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Catholics across southeast Wisconsin joined together in prayer to celebrate the start of Ash Wednesday, Feb. 26. 

Archbishop Jerome Listecki led an Ash Wednesday mass at Pius Xi Catholic High School -- something he's done for 11 years in a row. 

"The wonderful thing, if you take a look I’m sure you did looking at the student body here, it’s a tremendous mixture of all of our communities. You saw white, black, Hispanic. Pius is a great representation,” said Archbishop Jerome Listecki.

Listecki's message to the students was about the importance of having discipline. He cited the Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, as an example of someone who really had discipline. 

“Nobody, no one has achieved a tremendous amount of success without discipline in their lives,” Listecki said.

The students and staff received their ashes at the mass as well. 

Listecki wants to remind Catholics what Ash Wednesday is truly all about. 

“What it does is it breaks our cycle of routine because all of a sudden everybody is like Lent is coming and what does everybody start to think about? Well, what do I give up? What do I do? How do I enact charity? So, what it does is things that we should be doing all the time, it elevates it to put it right before our face,” Listecki said.

There will be a service at Pius Xi Catholic High School at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26 -- as well as an Ash Wednesday mass at the Church of the Gesu at 9 p.m., located at 1145 West Wisconsin Avenue.