It’s Ash Wednesday. My Ash Wednesdays typically go the same. It is a day of fasting and abstinence from meat, so I am typically hungry (and therefore grumpy). This year that’s not an issue since I can’t eat meat or large meals anyway due to having a gall bladder that is functioning at 17% (the same percentage that marked my first grade received in high school geometry, so, not good).
But on an operational level, it is a busy day for me, at the most basic level. I answer phone calls. A lot of them. About what? About:
1. Is Ash Wednesday a holy day of obligation? (This question irritates me, but I do answer it: No)
2. When are your Masses? (at least that is a worship-related question, so I will allow it: 9 am and 5:30 pm this year).
3. Can I stop by and get my ashes? (longer explanation below)
This is a day of contradiction for me, every year. The ashes are a beautiful symbol of the juxtaposition of life and death, but the gospel reading every year for Ash Wednesday is about praying in secret and not making a show of your worship. For me, that always is a challenging message to take in as I walk around with ashes on my head.
It is also a day of demand for ashes. Catholics out there know (or should know) that ashes are a sacramental, not a sacrament. They are a symbol, a reminder, for us, but they aren’t meant to take on the meaning of something more than that. And they certainly aren’t supposed to take on a superstitious or even sacrilegious meaning that many ascribe to them.
Today a man was banging on the side door to the church. I happened to be near there, so I opened the door. He wanted his ashes. Right then. Administered by a priest. Or a deacon. But no one else.
I invited him to our worship service at 5:30, a full Mass. He declined to join us.
It reminded me of an incident last year, when another staff member was accosted by a family (most of whom was still in the car) who demanded ashes. Outside. At the car. They wanted a drive-by ashing. When the staff member told them they could join us for worship later that day, they instead elected to rub ashes off of the staff member’s head and administer them to the carload of people. Really.
It can be a day of frustration for me, because it brings out the worst in us Catholics, I think. The Ash Wednesday Mass is beautiful and meaningful if you let it be. But when you reduce it to needing to have a mark on your head so someone can see you are “holy,” then I’m pretty sure you’ve offended God.
Just say no to drive-by ashing.
