Ash Wednesday
March 6, 2019
TODAY IS ASH Wednesday, the first day of the penitential season of Lent, the day when ashes are placed on the foreheads of the observant as an act of self-abasement and a recognition of mortality:
“For dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.”–Genesis 3: 19
Or as Johnny Cash would say, “Sooner or later God’ll cut you down.”
There is no mention of this custom of ashes in the New Testament, but it is found in the Old Testament, mentioned in Esther iv. 1, and Dan. ix. 3. The English abbot Ælfric of Eynsham describes the observation of Lent in the 10th century:
On that Wednesday, throughout the world,
as it is appointed, priests bless
clean ashes in church, and then lay them
on people’s heads, so that they may remember
that they came from earth and will return again to dust,
just as Almighty God said to Adam,
after he had sinned against God’s command:
‘In labour you shall live and in sweat you shall eat
your bread upon the earth, until you return again
to the same earth from which you came,
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’
This is not said about the souls of mankind,
but about their bodies, which moulder to dust,
and shall again on Judgement Day, through the power of our Lord,
rise from the earth, all who ever lived,
just as all trees quicken again in the season of spring
which were deadened by the winter’s chill.
While Ash Wednesday seems filled with gloom, it is no accident that it occurs as spring approaches, as Ælfric notes. “Lent” is from an Old English word “lencten” meaning spring. As this beautiful French Lenten hymn, found at The Clerk of Oxford, suggests, Lent has its own gladness:
To bow the head
In sackcloth and in ashes,
Or rend the soul,
Such grief is not Lent’s goal;
But to be led
To where God’s glory flashes,
His beauty to come nigh,
To fly, to fly,
To fly where truth and light do lie.
Lent also is a time of military preparation. The great army of Christ strengthens itself to do battle. Pope Benedict XIV said in an encyclical on May 29, 1741,
The observance of Lent is the bond of union in our army; by it we are distinguished from the enemies of the Cross of Christ; by it we turn aside the chastisements of God’s wrath; by its means, being guarded by heavenly succours during the day, we fortify ourselves against the prince of darkness. If this observance comes to be relaxed it is to the detriment of God’s glory, to the dishonour of the Catholic religion and to the peril of souls; nor can it be doubted that such negligence will become a source of misfortune to nations, of disaster to public affairs and of adversity to individuals.”
The Pope’s words are prophetic, and we can rightly blame the state of the world today on the failure of many Christians to observe Lent. It’s interesting to note that every “white nationalist” alive today is a descendant of people who observed Lent. And yet how many white nationalists will be fasting today?
The First Prayer from the Mass for Ash Wednesday in the Saint Andrew Daily Missal:
O ALMIGHTY AND ETERNAL GOD, spare those who are penitent, be merciful to those who supplicate Thee; and vouchsafe to send Thy holy Angel from heaven, to bless and sanctify these ashes, that they may be a wholesome remedy to all who humbly implore Thy holy name, and accuse themselves as a result of the consciousness of their sins, deploring their crimes before Thy divine clemency, or humbly and earnestly beseeching Thy sovereign mercy: and grant through the invocation of Thy most holy name that all who may be sprinkled with them for the remission of their sins, may receive health of body and safety of soul. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
[Thanks to Fish Eaters for the Johnny Cash song.]
