Ashes to Ashes – Ash Wednesday
SEASON OF CHANGE – Ash Wednesday
“Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shall return.” The refrain is repeated as a cross of ashes is imprinted on the foreheads of those in the church. The church is crowded for 7a.m. as parents with school children, others preparing for work, stop to get their ashes before beginning the day. My children sit patiently through the ritual, knowing their reward will be donuts on the way to school. It had become our Ash Wednesday ritual, one they looked forward to back then and remember now as adults.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, a reminder of our mortality. I remember this day from my childhood and pass this on to my children. There is something about Ash Wednesday. Churches are full even though it is not a holy day of obligation. Services are better attended than most holy days of obligation. We don’t have to always be obliged with the threat of excommunication to do what is right. I especially enjoy those services I attend not out of obligation but because I want to.
And so we begin this season of penitence, this season of spiritual transformation and change. How will the fire of God’s love change me this lent? I seek new ways to grow, try to come up with the spiritual discipline that will best enable me to grow in my faith. I come up with resolutions, good intentions in the glow of early morning candle light and ashes.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, ready or not, here comes lent and the spiritual growth it provides.
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. Joel 2:12-13a
This post is part of a series of reflections on the Church year. click here to follow blog
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