It is Ash Wednesday and for the faithful, it marks the start of lent.

Churches all across the Rio Grande Valley will be holding special services for people to attend.

Valley churches are ready to receive hundreds of faithful Wednesday morning. Ash Wednesday is a popular day of faith amongst Christian believers.

Church leaders say it's important to welcome any and everyone.

Ash Wednesday is better known as the start of lent, which marks the 40 days of prayer, fasting and giving for Christians.

It happens every spring as a preparation for the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. Lent ends on Thursday, April 17, also called Holy Thursday.

The church takes the blessed palm fronds and burns them into ashes. Church leaders mark a sign either on people's forehead or hands with the ashes. This signifies the start of a period of self reflection.

San Martine De Porres Church Pastor Esteban Hernandez explains why the meaning of lent is so important to many faithfuls.

"Do acts of charity and also to renew ourselves and time to go to the sack of reconciliation and to renew our lives in Christ," Pastor Hernandez said.

Hernandez further explains the meaning of Ash Wednesday.

"God will go out to Jerusalem and those who he finds with the ashes on his forehead will be saved, and so for us now. This is a symbol of our repentance and religion to go out and do acts of charity," Pastor Hernandez said.

San Martín De Porres Catholic Church in Weslaco will have bilingual services starting at 6:30 a.m.

If you don't have time to stop by for services today, there are also churches that offer Ashes To Go.

One of them is First United Methodist Church in McAllen, they are ready for visitors.

"So over the last three years, in the last year, we easily saw 200 to 300 people come through. Most of those people are not a part of our church. That's what was so good, letting us do something different," First United Methodist Church Lead Pastor Jon Herrin said. "We start in the morning, with Ashes To Go, we are in our parking lot from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. People who are going to work or dropping kids off at school, come through, we do a prayer."

First United Methodist will have services at noon and is also offering Ashes To Go starting at 5 p.m.

The Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan Del Valle is also offering masses and Ash Wednesday services in both English and Spanish. They start at 7 a.m. and run until 7 p.m.