ASH
WEDNESDAY
The
black ash is wet and cold. A practiced thumb stamps us with two intersecting
lines of burnt palms from last year. Those gathered at Mass walk back up the
aisle to their places as we await the dismissal. Looking around, I see so many
faces: young, old, teens, mothers, fathers, and single people. Some faces I
recognize from Sunday Mass; some faces I don’t recognize. We join in singing
the recessional hymn as Father progresses slowly toward the doors of the
church.
Then
we go out into the morning air to start our day, marked with the sign of
Christ. School and work will begin now that this liturgy is over, and the black
marks on our foreheads will be a cause for discussion, for double takes, and
for witness.
So
Lent begins.
Every
year in the middle of a week in late winter we go to Church and have the ashes
smudged upon our clean foreheads. Every year the churches are filled to
overflowing with the regulars and the not-so-regulars. Why do we still undergo
this ritual of ashes that is centuries old, as old as the prophets who pleaded
with God’s people to turn back from sin and toward God? We go because we need
to go, because at least once a year we need to be reminded that our deepest
hunger is the hunger for God. Lent is a gift that the Church in her wisdom
celebrates every year. It is a gift of time, a gift of contemplation, and a
gift of quiet so that we may listen to the Word, who whispers to us to come
back to the God who created us. It encourages us to turn away from the noise
and over-indulged appetites so that we may understand the hunger that can be
filled—with the grace of God—only by prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor.
So we go to our parish churches once a year to have crosses signed upon our
faces. It is in this same manner that, when the Gospel is proclaimed, we take
our right thumbs, trace three crosses, and pray: may the word of God be in my
mind, on my lips, and in my heart. The prayer of the whole Church, the Body of
Christ, is that each year the sign of the cross penetrates a little deeper and
moves us toward fuller conversion toward the light of Christ. May this Lent be
a time of quiet peace and grace.
Mass
Times for ASH WEDNESDAY
ð 9:30 am St. Paul’s High School
ð 1:00 pm St. Dominic and Queen of Heaven
elementary school
ð 7:30 pm Parish Mass
You
are all invited to any Mass
Please
remember that there is an extra Mass on Friday Evening during Lent at 7pm
followed by the Stations of the Cross at 7:30
Date
to Remember
Fr.
Phil’s Roast Beef Dinner –
Saturday
February 18th 2018 in the parish hall.
I
hope you all have a good week!
Fr. Phil
