Ashes

Today, I think, is one of the most moving days in the Church and the most real. Ashes have a tendency to speak to us to our core. Churches seemed to be filled today. Why?

Our Christian practice of ashes is heavily steeped in our Jewish roots. There are many passages in the Old Testament connecting ashes with mourning and penance. The mourner sat in it or rolled in it; even mixing his food with ashes as a sign of sorrow. There is also an understanding of the cleansing property of ashes seen in the need for the ashes of a Red Heifer, which mixed with water, purified the unclean.  To sum up ashes: Mourning, Cleansing, Penance and Renewal.

Today, you heard as ashes were placed on your foreheads: "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." I told that to my roommate this evening and he looked at me with a stare. A few seconds later he said, "well, that's just plain scary." Honestly, it is. This phrase is first mentioned in the Scripture by God Himself.  It is spoken to Adam and Eve after the Fall before they are expelled from the Garden.  Pius Parsch commented that this is the "first sad Ash Wednesday."  We have been given the gift of life. We were created from the dust.  When our time is over, our lives handed back to God, our bodies once again return to the dust. That is a pretty sobering thought.  Ever since that time in the Garden, we have been remembering those words.  We mourn because we cut ourselves off from the source of Life. We grieve and long to come back to the Garden. We look to God with faces covered in ashes and dirt. A reminder to ourselves that everything is fleeting and everything will pass away. All that will remain is Love.

We place those ashes in the sign of the cross on our foreheads, the peak of our mortal bodies.  Talk about cleansing. Ashes no longer are the end. By the cross, we will find cleansing. By the cross, we will find true repentance.  By the cross, we will be renewed. By the cross, our mourning will be turned to joy. So, how do we get from the ashes to the empty tomb? A 40 day hike to the cross.  It is by the cross that the Garden is now open back to us. That the words, "from dust you shall return," now have no more sting.  Love has triumphed.  Love no longer is held by death. The place to return is not to the dust, but to the House of the Father.

So yes, sit today in your ashes.  Don't rub them off. Don't wash them off.  Wear them.  We are but dust. All is fleeting. Now is the acceptable time.  Now is the time to cleans our hearts from anything that is not Love. Like the Phoenix, the symbol of the Resurrection, we will rise from the ashes to new life in Him.  By His Cross and Resurrection, the world of ashes will be transformed into the world of Glory.