It's About Those Dirty Faces

Despite the admonition of the gospel for Ash Wednesday, people find it a mark of distinction to show their ashes proudly. In the gospel, Jesus admonishes his disciples to wash their faces and groom their hair when they are fasting. Earlier in the same discourse about praying, believers are reminded to go into their room in secret before their heavenly Father who knows us best in the secret recesses of our hearts.

As a child of Philadelphia Catholicism we were reminded in grade school by the good Sisters that this was some kind of profession of our Catholicism in the faces of our protestant neighbors! I’ve learned a bit more in the many years since about conversion as a matter of the heart and the inner action of God in each of our lives.

Clean, Neat Symbol
Liturgical symbols are central to our Catholic celebrations of seasons and our prayer life. Ash Wednesday’s marking of believers with blessed ashes on the forehead is a focusing moment in our gathering at the beginning of Lent. As usual with liturgical symbols, the blessing and signing with ashes is more than first appears. A hint to the symbolism is not only the ashes but the marking with the sign of the Cross.

Lent refocuses our spiritual attention on the essentials of our faith life. The Cross stands tall in front of the other symbols and actions. It is through the Cross that life is given and the Cross becomes our way of life. Conversion of heart is to turn away from sin and death and walk in the way of the Cross. It is to pass from death to life in Christ. The apostle Paul tells us: “God forbid that we should glory, save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ by whom [we] are crucified to the world and the world to us.” (Galatians 6:14)

The way to discover the Cross is central to Lent. It is not an apologetic to our Catholicism. In the early Church this discovery was made by “prayer, fasting, and almsgiving,” all ways of emptying ourselves before God. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians writes eloquently of the self-emptying of Christ that we might have life. In Greek this is called “kenosis,” or emptying. The Fathers and theologians write about how Jesus laid aside his divinity to take on our humanity. He emptied himself so that he could be raised up by the Father and we with him. The Cross is the ultimate sign of that emptying that we might be filled up with new life in Christ.

All of this Christ mystery is signed in the marking of the faithful with the blessed ashes in the sign of the Cross. The symbol is not neat and clean, but rather invites us to move beyond it and to explore the various levels of meaning and reality.

To understand the Cross one must move to the end of the Lenten journey and the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Holy Thursday reminds us that ashes lead to the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread and the outpouring of wine. Jesus, before his death, points to his own death and rising by sharing his presence with the believing community.

At the same Eucharist John’s gospel gives us yet another symbolic action to explain this movement from death to life. John writes about the washing of the feet and notes carefully that Jesus took off his robes before washing feet. This points to that self-emptying by the Lord. Further, the Apostles are reminded that they must do what the Lord and Master has done, i.e., empty themselves in service of others.

Easter Mystery
Good Friday presses us to see the Cross as victory over sin and death. John’s Gospel speaks of that same reality, where Jesus reigns victorious from the Cross.

Holy Saturday, the Great Vigil of Easter, is baptismal, when the elect go down into the waters and come out alive in Christ Jesus. The way to Easter life is to go down into the waters and die in Christ, only to be lifted up in him by the Father to resurrection. This is the culmination of the path to discipleship.

Ashes at the beginning of Lent are about death to life in Christ. They are about conversion of heart and following the Lord. Ashes are like bread broken and wine poured out. The accompanying prayers when the ashes are given speak of their meaning. “Be converted and believe in the Gospel,” we hear. An alternate form explains more clearly: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” The way to gospel life is to pass through death to life. Lent calls us to find that new life in Jesus’ Easter mystery.

Ashes are neither about outward signs nor showing our piety to everyone. They are an invitation to the breadth and depth of the mystery of Christ in our lives.

CDH