Ash Wednesday

All Souls had its first Ash Wednesday service on February 6. I did not grow up going to Ash Wednesday services. My first real exposure to it was after we moved to St. Louis. My co-workers had gone to a noon mass. As they came back I looked up at my co-worker and exclaimed (you know where this is going), you've got something on your forehead. The words were already out of my mouth when I realized what I was saying. We both had a good laugh. Kirk and I attended our first Ash Wednesday service two years ago at a local church here in Boulder. It felt strange, yet intriguing and powerful. So why did we decide to have a service this year? We felt it was a meanigful way to begin the season of lent leading up to Good Friday and Easter. I am sharing below what Kirk sent to our community preparing them for the service.

What is Ash Wednesday?
Ash Wednesday begins the season of the Church Year known as Lent, which begins forty days prior to Easter (excluding Sundays) and is characterized by a focus on penitence, fasting, prayer and works of charity. This first day of Lent reminds Christians of the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me." The way to Easter is the way to the cross. As the first step in this Lenten journey the Ash Wednesday service invites us to acknowledge our mortality, our sinfulness and our dependence upon the grace of God. The use of ashes as a physical sign of repentance are found throughout the Bible. For example the prophet Daniel, pleading for God to give grace to his people and lead them to repentance and renewal, wrote "So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes." (Daniel 9:3). Jesus Christ himself, in rebuking the cities, which had heard his message and witnessed his miracles yet refused to listen, referenced this practice of using ashes as a sign of repentance when he said, "Woe to your, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes."

Why put ashes on the forehead?
A unique feature of this service is the marking of the forehead with ashes in the sign of the cross. Since the 10th century the Church has used this practice to symbolize the frailty of our human existance and the 'dust and debris' in our lives, thus the name Ash Wednesday. The ashes are a physical reminder of our mortality, our sinfulness and our dependence upon the grace of God. As we come forward for the imposition of ashes, the minister will recite the words of Genesis 3:19, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."

So on Ash Wednesday we join with other Christians around the world to celebrate this service. As Thomas Howard has written, "To move through the disciplines in company with millions and millions of other believers all over the world is a profoundly instructive thing."