Ashes Anytime.
I used to be cynical about Ash Wednesday and criticized the way some people came to Church for ashes but were not seen there on Sunday. Why? Maybe it is a sense of mortality that gets a hearing in their busy minds. Maybe it is just a humble attitude they have. I really don’t know. God knows.
Many years ago, we decided to make Ash Wednesday a day of hospitality in Sacred Heart for everyone, catholic or not, and we have ashes available from 7 AM to 6 PM. Later at 7:30 PM, we have a ceremony of ashes which includes prayer, readings from scripture and a homily. Then each person is given a piece of dried out palm from last year’s Palm Sunday and invited to come forward and drop it in a Hibachi with a sense that it is a piece of the badness that seems to be in all of us, in one way or another. Soon all the pieces are aflame in front of us and we pray that we will be purified. Then, the ashes of our shallow offerings are placed in a vessel of clay attached to a big wooden cross. One by one, we come forward and hold the cross with one hand and solemnly and prayerfully, place the ashes of our shame upon our foreheads with the sense of humility that begs for forgiveness and a fresh start..
Come to think of it, we don’t put dirt around the buds and the roots we plant to stain them but to fertilize their growth. It is the same with us. The burning and the placing of ashes are ritual acts of purification and growth.
The word Lent comes from the old English word, lencthen, “lengthen”
…the days are lengthening. The sun’s warming time with us is lengthening.
Growth will start in the Earth and hopefully in us. Lent is a springtime of
the heart. Forty good days. We try to get rid of the rubbish of our Winter,
the rubbish of our lives. A clean break. Let’s grow!
Michael Doyle
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Christmas 2004
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