Symbol of Repentance, Sign of Hope: Ash Wednesday

Symbol of Repentance

A symbol of repentance is not necessarily something that we’re proud of. Most of us prefer not to advertise our own sinfulness. And yet, I’ve noticed a curious thing about Ash Wednesday. We all know people whose connection to the practice of the Faith has become somewhat tenuous.  You will rarely see them darken a church door on an ordinary Sunday. They may put in an appearance at Christmas, and maybe Easter.  Interestingly, I see a significant number of these occasional Catholics show up in church on Ash Wednesday as well. I also encounter them wearing the ashes of penitence on their foreheads as they go about their daily business.

As I said, it’s curious. The appeal of the joyous feasts of Christmas and Easter is obvious. But why should someone who is in all other respects a fairly lukewarm Catholic seek out a public proclamation of unworthiness, a sign in the middle of his face saying “I’m a sinner!”  What is the appeal?

I know my Iniquity

I think it starts with the fact that, on some level, we all know we’re sinners. We all have moments when, at least in our hearts, we can identify with the voice of King David in Psalm 51:

For I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me,

To thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before thee:

That thou mayst be justified in thy words and

Mayst overcome when thou art judged.

For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and

In sins did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5-7)

We are not all equally willing to acknowledge our unworthiness, but even those who consciously reject God have at least a lurking awareness of their own finitude and imperfection (and the rejection of God may itself be an attempt to escape that awareness).  If that’s the end of the story, then a man is a wretched thing indeed. That’s not the end for King David, however, who goes on to say:

Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and

I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me,

And I shall be made whiter than snow.

To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness: and

The bones that have been humbled shall rejoice. (Psalm 51: 9-10)

He trusts that the God who made him, who is all goodness and all perfection, can save him from his own imperfect self.

A Passionate Expectation

We who are Christians have that and more.  Pope Francis says:

Christian hope is not simply a desire, a wish: for a Christian, hope is expectation, fervent, passionate expectation for the final and definitive fulfillment of a mystery, the mystery of God’s love, in which we are reborn and in which we already live. And it is the expectation of someone who is about to arrive: it is Christ the Lord who makes Himself ever closer to us, day after day, and who comes to introduce us finally into the fullness of His communion and of His peace. (General Audience Catechesis, 15 October 2014)

We know that Christ has already died for our sins and risen to new life. All we need to do is pick up our cross and follow him.  Ash Wednesday represents the first step on that journey.

The Twelve Steps

    We can see a reflection of this same idea in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (which itself bears an uncanny resemblance to explicitly Christian disciplines such as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola). An untold number of alcoholics have been rescued from their addiction over the past eight decades through the 12 Steps.  

The first step is to admit that our life is out of control, that we are not in charge. Hiding from our problems and trying to cover up our failings takes up a lot of time and effort, all of it wasted on an impossible task.  When we can stand up in front of a room full of people and say “I am an alcoholic,” or whatever our particular downfall might be, it gives us an incredible feeling of freedom.  Yes, our life is still a mess, but now, at least, we can really begin to do something about it.  

In the Twelve Steps, that means coming to believe that a higher power can restore us (step 2). Then we turn our will and lives over to that power (step 3), and so on, through nine more steps, until, in the twelfth, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” This process looks very familiar to anyone who knows the Gospels and the Catholic Tradition.

We Who are Strong

Ash Wednesday is like that first flush of freedom, our own First Step. It’s somber, because sin is an ugly reality in our lives, but it gives us a glimpse of Salvation as well: beyond the Via Dolorosa and the pain of Calvary, we can see the Empty Tomb and the Glory of the Resurrection.  We know that the long, hard journey ahead need not lead to futility. We know that the Higher Power who loved us so much that he took on our flesh, suffered in it, and rose again can indeed restore us, if we are willing to turn our lives over to Him.

And so we should be happy to see our less-than-consistent brethren in church on Ash Wednesday.  St. Paul tells us:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves; let  each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him.  For Christ did not please himself . . . (Romans 15:1-3)

We should welcome them, encourage them, and pray for them, in the hope that they go beyond that first step.  Those ashes on the forehead are more than just a symbol of repentance. They are a sign of hope in Christ’s forgiveness. And we should ask them to pray for us as well, because we, too, are often lukewarm in our faith; we, too, are dust, and to dust we shall return.

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