Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The priest or liturgical minister pronounces this sobering reminder before smudging our foreheads with the sign of the cross on Ash Wednesday. As the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday commences the 40-day period of penance and preparation that culminates in the celebration of Easter.
People love Ash Wednesday, and the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is one of the most highly attended celebrations of the year. It’s fascinating because this isn’t even a Holy Day of Obligation. In other words, people show up at Ash Wednesday Mass because they want to, not because they have to.
Unlike the Eucharist, you don’t even have to be a Catholic to receive ashes in a Catholic church on Ash Wednesday. It’s open to everyone.
A cynic might suggest the affinity for Ash Wednesday is because people love the outward show of receiving ashes. Wherever you go on Ash Wednesday, people will know you’re pious if you have a cross smeared on your forehead.
Others might chalk it up (is this a pun?) to rote religion. People go to church on Ash Wednesday because that’s when they’ve always gone.
The appeal of Ash Wednesday, though, speaks to a deep respect for the tradition and what it represents. People gather to remember their mortality and finitude. Lent reminds us that there’s no escaping our death.
As we process together to receive our ashes, we can envision our own funerals. One day, people will meet to remember us — maybe even some of the same people in line with us on Ash Wednesday, maybe even in this vey church.
Ash Wednesday is a gift of solidarity. This day of liturgical year provides a visible reminder of our universal connection with everyone. Receiving our ashes is an act of unity with the whole of humanity — and also with Christ, whose death we commemorate at the end of Lent on Good Friday.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” are not the only words pronounced during the distribution of the ashes. The other blessing states, “Repent and believe the gospel.”
Change your mind and ways. Believe the good news. The call to conversion is made to everyone, even the holiest among us.
We’re all tempted to think we won’t die, that we’ll somehow escape. With a splash of devastating irony, this mentality creates harmful and self-destructive behaviors.
“You shall not surely die” is a devilish lie that drives people to create monuments unto themselves. They become afraid they’ll be replaced, so they join movements they hope will carry on their beliefs far into the future. In that way, they hope they’ll never die. A thoughtful Ash Wednesday dismantles that way of thinking.
Repent and believe the good news. The Good News of life. The Good News that after Good Friday comes Easter, after death comes resurrection.
Yes, it takes faith. That’s why it’s a call to believe. But the other choice is to believe the lie, “You shall not surely die.”
The good news of Ash Wednesday is the paradoxical grace that affirms no one escapes death. It doesn’t seem good, but the paradox is that we all share in life. The call to believe that good news is a call to embody the solidarity of resurrection now through love, justice, and service.
On Ash Wednesday, there are no outsiders. Because of our fraility, we all belong to the same human family. May we take the fellowship represented by those ashes and live in union with the people we encounter each day.
