“When you fast,Then we put ashes on our foreheads and go to work or shopping so all can see our unwashed faces.
do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”
Today I got a smudgy cross from the EMHC doing our side, but the priests were etching Gothic crosses and shadow boxes on the lucky ones whose ashes could be worn on the red carpet of any occasion having such a carpet.
I like seeing ashes on fellow travellers. I can't see mine, but seeing them on others is a reminder that we are all headed for the Cross and that we have a limited time to do God's work here.
ReplyDeleteAsh Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation, so you could skip it if you feel uncomfortable about it. Or you could decline to have the ashes imposed. Or get them in the evening when you are less likely to be parading around in public.
We get better a turn-out for Ash Wednesday than we do for an actual holy day of obligation.
DeleteIt seems to be something that speaks to people, is my guess. Always a big crowd at both Catholic and Episcopal services.
DeleteYes...They should give them out on Sundays for a turn-out as good as Ash Wednesday. Many more men seemed to show up today.
DeleteThe choir I am in sang tonight. We were discussing afterwards why Ash Wednesday is so well attended. One person suggested that it's because you don't have to be good to get ashes. In fact everyone is pretty much admitting that they're not good. Another suggested that there's always a lot of fear and uncertainty in the air especially now. There's Covid 19, which thankfully hasn't shown up here yet, not to mention the uncertainty of the election cycle. People feeling that they need all the help they can get.
DeleteAsh Wednesday was big before Covid 19. And before Trump.
DeleteMy favorite leprechaun said it is because we give something away. (Palm Sunday now outdraws Easter. I suggested, a couple of pastors ago, that we hand out "I shall call the pebble Dare" pieces of gravel -- in honor of Peggy Gordon's "By My Side" in Godspell -- at random Masses and see if that draws them. He thought about it.) I think your first comment was closest to the truth; it's a chance to show God what we really think of ourselves. Then we open ourselves for 40 days to listen to His version of us.
That's an interesting take, Katherine. I guess ashes are not withheld for ideological reasons. It's a kind of communion in its way. Yes, we're all sinners and God still loves us.
DeleteWatched the papal evening mass live from Saint Sabrina, a really interesting early church, the apse with the presbyteral bunch. An enclosed area coming out into the nave. It now has a choir but was originally the bema (platform) where the clergy did the liturgy of the word.
ReplyDeleteInteresting variations of the placing of ashes. The pope put them on the crown of the balding heads of the cardinals, then of course they put their skullcaps over the ashes.
Some of the African priests distributed ashes by sprinkling them over the heads of each persons. Just put their hands in ashes and rubbed them together over the head of the person without touching them.
Then of course many of the priests anointed the forehead in the sign of the cross as we usually do.
I think the African priest are more in keeping with the Gospel that we had just heard. The contrast bothers me every year, but some of the ash crosses were so artistic I just had to say something this year
DeleteIt's funny how the burnt palms make such excellent smudgy ashes. One time when we lived in another town the priest had the idea that everyone would write down a sin that they wished to overcome, and throw the pieces of paper in a fire-pot and burn them. Then they would use those ashes to put on people's foreheads. Except it didn't work out too well. Paper doesn't leave much of an ash, and it doesn't transfer well. Next year they went back to burnt palms.
ReplyDeleteHusband says we've got enough burnt palm ash in the sacristy to last 10 years.
Sometimes it pays to stick to tradition.
DeleteI didn't make it to church and get ashes until yesterday evening. With Tom's post lodged in a corner of my mind, I noted the following:
ReplyDeleteFirst reading:
"Blow the trumpet in Zion!
proclaim a fast,
call an assembly ... "
Gospel reading:
"When you give alms,
do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others."
It seems this blowing of trumpets business is ambiguous. Good according to Joel; not so good according to Jesus (per Matthew). We might note that, in Joel, it is God himself, speaking through the prophet, who orders the blowing of trumpets, whereas Jesus notes that it is the human beings - the hypocrites - who order it in his day.
Does this mini-mini-reflection have anything to do with the public display of ashes? If anything, perhaps it's an admonishment to display our ashes in a spirit of authentic contrition, rather than a hypocritical claim to holiness, or a rather superficial claim to tribal identity. Just one thought.