Ash Wednesday

 Ash Wednesday

Liturgical Color: Violet

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. ~Distribution of ashes

It was a common practice within the early Church that those who were found guilty of grave public sin needed to do public penance before they were admitted back into communion with the Church and admitted to the Most Holy Eucharist. The public sinners came forward in sackcloth forty days before Easter and were sprinkled with ashes, in keeping with many Old Testament examples of public penance. They fasted and prayed for forty days and then, on Easter, were readmitted into full communion with the Church. Eventually, prior to the end of the first millennium, this practice was extended to the entire Church as a way of highlighting everyone’s need for penance. One of the earliest mentions of this practice becoming universal comes from an English Benedictine monk who wrote:

We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.

Today, as a sign of our ongoing need to repent of our sins and do penance, the faithful are invited to come forward to be marked with ashes as a sign of their commitment to the penitential season of Lent, so as to celebrate with great joy the Solemnity of Easter. Lent is forty-six days long. Forty of those days are penitential days, and six of them are Sundays. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes with the Easter Vigil. The forty penitential days are an imitation of Jesus’ forty days in the desert.

As we come forward to receive ashes, the minister traditionally says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This line is taken from the Book of Genesis when God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. He told Eve that she would suffer the pains of childbirth and be subjected to her husband. God told Adam that he would labor for his food through sweat and toil. To both of them, God said this curse would last “Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Thus, the final curse of original sin is death: “…to dust you shall return.”

As we come forward to receive ashes, we should hear God saying to us, as He said to Adam and Eve, that we also suffer the consequences of original sin and will die. But that curse must be seen in the light of God’s final plan of salvation. Today, we acknowledge that the curse of death will endure but also hold onto the hope of resurrection made possible through Christ. Lent is a time of repentance for our sin and hope in redemption. Ash Wednesday is our liturgical and public statement that we have chosen both repentance and redemption.

As you come forward to receive the ashes today, don’t just go through the motions. Make this act a prayer and one of deep interior devotion. Call to mind your sins and the sins of your whole life, as best you can. Acknowledge the just punishment of eternal death that you deserve for your sins. But then call to mind the infinite and unmerited mercy of God. Remember that even though you are an undeserving sinner, God has reached down from Heaven to offer you the gift of eternal salvation. He has invited you to receive this gift through your repentance and humility. Humble yourself today in “sackcloth and ashes,” and as with those public sinners of old, God will use this Lent to more fully unite your soul with His through His glorious death and resurrection.