An INCREDIBLE Season
“Dust and ashes touch our face, mark our failure and our longing...” These are the beginning lyrics to a song we will sing tomorrow at St. Edwards Catholic Church. Lent, one of my favorite seasons of the church year is about to begin, and as I often do with other events and holy days of the Catholic Church calendar, I recall song lyrics! I’ve been doing Ash Wednesday as a church musician for 50 years, (but I’m NOT old.)
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a 40 day and 40 night time of prayer, penance, fasting and almsgiving, to prepare ourselves for the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. It is one of only two days in the year that both fasting and abstinence are observed, with Good Friday being the other one. Fasting means giving up some food, and abstinence means giving up meat. The subsequent Fridays during Lent are days of abstinence. Personally speaking, in addition to prayer, fasting and almsgiving, Lent is the time when I, along with many others, deny ourselves something, like sugary or fried foods, or chocolate (40 days of “hangry”). Some of us might choose to sacrifice an action or an activity, like eating out in restaurants or shopping on Amazon (shared by a friend). While Jesus was in the desert, He spent those 40 days praying, fasting, avoiding temptation and preparing for His public ministry. He is our example for Lent, and He is INCREDIBLE.
The last time I researched it, there were nearly eight billion people in the world, and in every corner of it, ashes are distributed on Ash Wednesday. These ashes are not only available in Catholic churches. More and more, other denominations, such as Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians, provide them in various places. It isn’t so much about WHO distributes these ashes, but WHAT they represent.
As Father Mike Schmitz says, we too are called to be INCREDIBLE, and we have been blessed with all the tools we need to do it! I am really not sharing anything you don’t already know here. Opportunities like reaching out to a friend, calling on the sick, visiting with someone who is elderly, sharing something with the needy, and basically just being the hands and feet of Jesus are plentiful. The ability to discern right from wrong is among the simplest of these tools. It seems easy enough to be INCREDIBLE, but many of these wonderful opportunities get missed. Not all my sins are sins of commission. Many of them are sins of omission. I need to step up my game and have a prayerful talk with Jesus, asking His help to remember all the dirty parts of my life that require repentance. Ash Wednesday is the perfect day for me to remember, reflect, repent and renew.
For the last several years, beginning on Ash Wednesday, I start the day by reading Psalms 51. On Fridays during Lent, my husband and I attend the Stations of the Cross at our church. It is a beautiful, scriptural prayer service memorializing the events on that fateful day of Christ’s crucifixion. There is something about the observance of Ash Wednesday and the forty days that follow that provides me the perfect opportunity to feel some of what Jesus did then, and when Easter Sunday comes, I can celebrate His glorious triumph with joyful confidence. Now, THAT is INCREDIBLE!
Throughout the Bible, when we read that some person is wearing sackcloth and ashes, or sitting in dust and ashes, it usually marks a low point in their life.... a time, perhaps, when they were feeling unworthy. The Church saw this as an outward sign of something causing inward remorse. So, around the twelfth century, the church fathers took the 40-day season of Lent and marked its beginning with Ash Wednesday. It became a day to say, “I am sorry, Lord. I am feeling deep remorse for the way I have caused pain to another. Sometimes I love things I shouldn’t, and sometimes I dislike things I should love.” The list goes on and on.
On Ash Wednesday, the priest places his thumb into the small container of ashes, then touches my forehead while saying either, “Man, thou art dust, and to dust you shall return,” or “Repent and believe the Gospel.” As he says these words, he traces the shape of a cross with the ashes. The representation of that cross on my forehead symbolizes the love Christ has for me, despite all my shortcomings—so much so that He suffered and died on the cross because of it. INCREDIBLE!
Each decade that passes, the “prize” my eye is set upon becomes less and less “out of focus.” The image Ash Wednesday paints becomes clearer and closer. So, if you are Catholic, or if you are not, my prayer for you is to consider the true meaning of tomorrow and pray a little. Maybe fast a little. Maybe abstain a little. Above all, remember, reflect, repent and renew. When you get in sync with the vision God has for you, you will indeed experience an INCREDIBLE Easter!
