Sean Spicer on Ash Wednesday I usually watch the previous night’s EWTN newscast during my morning ablutions (God bless whoever posts the newscasts on their website). Yesterday the news anchor appeared all smiling as usual, but with a black smear on her forehead. She took us to Washington, where the bureau chief also had a black mark on his forehead. On to New York, where that reporter had the black smudge. And finally she interviewed Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s press secretary. He had a big bold black cross on his forehead. I had to laugh. I’m sure ashen crosses on staid foreheads looked perfectly ridiculous to at least to some. Imagine, the President’s Press secretary, wearing a black cross on his forehead while giving media interviews!
At noon on Ash Wednesday our church was full of quiet folks, most of whom I’d never seen before. Some I’d seen, but never seen at Mass. And all were so grateful to receive their ashes! A dignified lady knelt at the altar rail in hopeful supplication as I came down the line. “Remember O woman that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return” I said, and smeared a rough black cross on her delicate forehead. She thanked me from the bottom of her heart with a big smile, almost in tears. How marvelous that so many accept this sign of death on their foreheads, because they know it is the sign of life!
Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation and yet worldwide churches are full of people longing for their ashes. Why is that? Because everyone looks toward death. A person may not ever go to Mass, or even believe in much that he can’t see, but he believes in death. Ash Wednesday offers a slim chance that we can beat death at its own game. We can take on a little bit of death, a spiritual vaccination, by saying with the priest: “I am no more than a handful of dust. I choose, at least on this first day of Lent, to die with Christ, in the hope that this bit of dust will be someday see the light of eternal day.”
On Wednesday, all the world seemed to be longing for that little sign of death on their foreheads. We took it gratefully, in the hope that this sign would become our ticket to life. May it ferry us safely over the dark waters of death into endless day.
At noon on Ash Wednesday our church was full of quiet folks, most of whom I’d never seen before. Some I’d seen, but never seen at Mass. And all were so grateful to receive their ashes! A dignified lady knelt at the altar rail in hopeful supplication as I came down the line. “Remember O woman that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return” I said, and smeared a rough black cross on her delicate forehead. She thanked me from the bottom of her heart with a big smile, almost in tears. How marvelous that so many accept this sign of death on their foreheads, because they know it is the sign of life!
Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation and yet worldwide churches are full of people longing for their ashes. Why is that? Because everyone looks toward death. A person may not ever go to Mass, or even believe in much that he can’t see, but he believes in death. Ash Wednesday offers a slim chance that we can beat death at its own game. We can take on a little bit of death, a spiritual vaccination, by saying with the priest: “I am no more than a handful of dust. I choose, at least on this first day of Lent, to die with Christ, in the hope that this bit of dust will be someday see the light of eternal day.”
On Wednesday, all the world seemed to be longing for that little sign of death on their foreheads. We took it gratefully, in the hope that this sign would become our ticket to life. May it ferry us safely over the dark waters of death into endless day.
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