Dear Tom,
In the Old Testament ashes were used: 1) as a sign of humility
and mortality; 2) as a sign of sorrow and repentance for sin. Our
Christian use of ashes in the liturgy of Ash Wednesday has been
taken from this Old Testament biblical custom.
Receiving ashes on the head as a reminder of mortality and a sign
of sorrow for sin was a practice of the Anglo-Saxon church in the
10th century. It was made universal throughout the Western
church at the Synod of Benevento in 1091.
Originally the use of ashes to betoken penance was a matter of
private devotion. Later it became part of the official rite for
reconciling public penitents. In this context, ashes on the
penitent served as a motive for fellow Christians to pray for the
returning sinner and to feel sympathy for him. Still later, the
use of ashes passed into its present rite of beginning the
penitential season of Lent on Ash Wednesday.
A Christian should do everything for God's glory and the service
of others, even the smallest of his actions, like brushing his
teeth or tyings his shoes. "Wether you eat or drink or whatever
else you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1st Cor. 10:31).
This principle applies to our acts of religious observances also
-- they are done to please God and edify others: "Whether we wake
or sleep, we should live together with Christ ... and edify one
another" (1st Thes. 5:10-11).
But if we do our acts of religion only to be seen and praised by
others, then they are without any spiritual value. Our Lord
wants us to have a pure intention of pleasing him in all we do.
He does not want us to omit the actions, private or public, by
which we bear witness to our faith in him. So in church among
our own, our fellow Christians, we pray aloud and sing and
receive Holy Communion and other sacraments and sacramentals,
including the ashes on our heads on Ash Wednesday.
We are all penitents. Our Lord emphasized that universal truth.
And St. John wrote: "If we say we have no sin we deceive
ourselves ... If we say we have not sinned we make God a liar"
(1st John 1:8, 10). So ashes are a suitable sign for every one
of us, since all of us are sinners.
Shall we leave the mark of ashes on our heads when we leave the
church to go about our business? That is up to each one. We
live in a secular environment, and we have a duty to witness to
our belief in Christ, even at the cost of mockery. A speck of
ash may set your neighbor to thinking. It could lead to a
question or a prayer.
Sincerely in Christ,
Father Mateo
- Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit -
-- | CIN (619-449-6030) Fido: (1:202/1613) http://www.cin.org/cin | St. Gabriel Gift & Book Nook: http://www.stgabriel.com/gabriel