Ash Wednesday Thoughts

There's no great shock that the beginning of the season of Lent attracts considerably less attention in the broad world than the beginning of the other great fast of the Christian tradition, Advent. The malls will not be decked for some time, though I guess at some point an Easter Bunny will appear for photos with the kiddies, but Lent just does not sell the way that days before Christmas do. You can only eat so many Peeps, I suppose.

For the past 14 years this first day of the fast has been marked in what is politely called an "intimate" service at the Lord's Table. I simply learned not to expect more than 10-15% of the congregation to trudge out in the middle of the week, in order to hear the "invitation" to examine our lives, and prepare for the wonder and mystery of the Lord's passion.

So it was a little bit of culture shock when we drove up to St. Joseph's parish last night. The sanctuary was nearly as full as it had been on Christmas Eve (though admittedly the great hall next to the sanctuary was not outfitted with the video link it had for that service.) We ended up in the balcony--a great vantage to see hundreds of the faithful line up to receive the imposition of ashes.

I understand that the church is in trouble when it allows itself to be drawn into a numbers game, but I admit to being impressed by a corporate sense of piety that seems to draw believers together, not just for the highest of holy days, like Christmas and Easter, but at these beginning moments of the story. One dare not guess the motives of all those gathered, and I understand that something like a "holy day of obligation" can still tug at people's hearts long after they've shaken loose any need to listen once they're there, but the mood and spirit of that worship service (by the way, one of three announced at Mass last Sunday) suggested at least to me that there was something very right going on.

I'd decided some time back that the impostion of ashes was not something I was comfortable with in those "intimate" services that had become the rule of life for the congregations I served. It always felt like "playing with symbols" that we were not really ready to embrace. Don't take the ashes, I thought, if you were not going to commit to the walk of the season, and truly engage the Fast. As I watched from my bird's eye view as women and men, young and old, infants, adults, seniors, all stood quietly as their forehead was smudged with a reminder of their mortality I realized how much we'd lost along the way.

A good friend started my Ash Wednesday with a lovely call to the Lenten discipline: "Go forth into the period of Lent as the humble people of God. And may the ashes of our grieving become the soil for our growing, the footsteps of the Christ be seen in the earth before us, and the Spirit be found beside us on the way." As I stood myself in front of someone I'd never met, and felt the ashes smudge my brow, I wondered how hard it would be to grow a faith without this soil. The celebration of Nativity just passed reminded me that the work of salvation began in the most meager of human settings. I realize today that that seed grows, not in the sterile clay of holy vessels, but in the living and dying loam of life.

There is much about where I find myself these days that makes me a little crazy, but I am only thankful that I had the space in my life last night to be where I was. "Turn away from sin, and believe the Gospel." Indeed!