Restoring The Sacred . . . What “Ash Wednesday Catholics” Can Teach Us About Catholic Worship

By JAMES MONTI

Ash Wednesday is coming very early this year — February 10. And with it will come the annual return of the “Ash Wednesday Catholics.” We are all familiar with the phenomenon that on Ash Wednesday the Catholic population of almost any given place seems to swell beyond measure as churches that normally see little more than a modest attendance at Sunday and weekday Masses are suddenly flooded with unfamiliar faces all in search of ashes for their foreheads.
No sooner do these visitors receive their tiny portion of dust than they disappear, largely not to be seen or heard from in church for the other 364 days of the year — although some will put in one more visit on Palm Sunday to lay claim to their share of blessed palms.
There is in this behavior a tacit admission, albeit unarticulated, that ultimately earthly comforts, pleasures, and success cannot satisfy the ever-restless heart. What this curious phenomenon tells us is that buried deep within these seemly indifferent souls rests a potent longing for the sacred, an ill-defined desire for what Lent and Holy Week represent.
Like the seed that fell amid thorns, this aspiration is choked by an obsessive preoccupation with the things of this world, yet it lingers just enough to draw these non-practicing Catholics irresistibly back to church when Ash Wednesday returns.
This all speaks to the power of sacred ritual, that even the simplest gestures of liturgical ceremony are integral to the expression of our faith and of God’s invitation to us, calling us through these rites to reconciliation and communion with Him.
So powerful is this rite of the ashes that even the shortening and simplification of the Ash Wednesday ceremony that came with the promulgation of the Roman Missal of 1970 has not diminished its mysterious hold upon the souls of the faithful.
At the heart of the rite are the words that have been used for the imposition of the ashes since the tenth century, “Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return” (unfortunately the word “man” was deleted from this formula in the most recent edition of the missal).
This formula is scriptural, an adaptation of the words God spoke to Adam following his fall, “. . . you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). As the medieval liturgist Honorius of Autun (+c. 1135) observed, the pronouncement of these words on Ash Wednesday is indeed intended to recall “the day of our expulsion from Paradise” (Gemma animae, book 3, chapter 43).
At present the traditional formula is listed in the missal as the second of two options, with a formula about repenting and believing in the Gospel given as the first choice. The fact that the latter “Repent and believe” formula is listed first, as well as a silly mentality that sees the description of ourselves as “dust” in the older formula as too negative and demeaning to our inflated egos, has caused the “Remember you are dust” formula to disappear from the ceremony in all too many places.
I would urge priests to select the traditional formula — the whole point of receiving ashes on our foreheads is to remind us of our mortality, that we are dust, so why not say so?
This understanding of the ashes and the traditional formula with which they have been administered for a thousand years is brought home by the fact that for centuries, in parts of southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland the rite of Catholic burial has included a symbolic threefold toss of earth upon the casket as the priest says the words, “Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”
In the Ash Wednesday ceremonies of both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, the ashes are sprinkled with holy water, and in the Extraordinary Form they are also incensed. These actions serve as testaments that our repentance is sacred and precious to the Lord, a gift of truly pleasing fragrance in His sight. The origin of the ashes, made by burning the blessed palms from Holy Week of the preceding year, reminds us that Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our annual journey to the sacred days of our Savior’s Passion, death, and Resurrection.
In the Ordinary Form the celebrant is given the option of selecting one of two prayers for blessing the ashes; the first option, which because it is presented first in the missal probably gets selected most often, does not even speak directly of blessing the ashes themselves but rather talks of blessing those who will receive the ashes.
For this reason the second option is preferable, for it does directly ask that the ashes be blessed, and is based upon one of the centuries-old blessings from the Extraordinary Form. Unfortunately when this prayer was “adapted” for the new rite an important phrase was deleted from the Latin text — “quos causa proferendae humilitatis, atque promerendae veniae.” This phrase explains the purpose of the ashes: “…and these ashes, which by reason of fostering humility, and obtaining forgiveness, we intend to be put upon our heads, vouchsafe to bless. . . .”
Yes, the ashes are meant to remind us of our need to humble ourselves and seek forgiveness.
The first of the prayers for the blessing of the ashes utilized in the Extraordinary Form, an oration dating back to the tenth century, addresses an aspect of the ashes totally unmentioned in the Ordinary Form prayers — the role of the ashes as a sacramental, a material object that by the priest’s blessing is rendered an efficacious instrument for the conferral of grace:
“Almighty eternal God, be sparing to the penitent, merciful to those beseeching Thee; and vouchsafe to send Thy holy angel from Heaven, that he may bless + and sanctify + these ashes, that they may be a salutary remedy to all humbly imploring Thy holy Name, and accusing themselves according to the consciousness of their sins, deploring their crimes before the sight of Thy divine clemency, and also entreating suppliantly and earnestly Thy most serene kindness, grant also by the invocation of Thy most holy Name that whoever shall have been sprinkled with them, for the remission of their sins, may receive health of body and the protection of their souls. Through Christ our Lord” (my own translation).
The concluding prayer of the Extraordinary Form ash-blessing rite further illuminates the significance of the ashes by calling to mind the example of the people of Nineveh, who upon hearing Jonah’s warning repented and put on sackcloth and ashes as a penance for their sins (Jonah 3:1-10).
In both forms of the Roman Rite we find an ancient prayer of sixth-century origin that sets the tone for Lent as a season of doing battle against evil with the armor of self-denial: “Grant us, O Lord, to commence our services to the Christian army with holy fasts, that going forth to do battle against spiritual evils, we may be fortified with the supports of self-denial. Through. . . .” (my own translation).
In the Extraordinary Form the ashes are received while kneeling, a posture that underlines the call to humble ourselves before God signified by the ashes. Interestingly the Ceremonial of Bishops for the Ordinary Form gives a bishop the option of administering the ashes while seated; in such a case it appears that the recipients would have to kneel before the bishop just like Confirmation candidates need to do as the bishop anoints each of them on the forehead — so at least in this case the posture of kneeling for the ashes can be implemented in the Ordinary Form also.

Wandering Sheep

I know that many priests must feel overwhelmed by the annual barrage of phone calls they receive from people asking when they can “get ashes” and the steady stream of stragglers who come to the church or rectory all day long asking for ashes outside the “official times” for their distribution.
But I would invite priests to see all this as a golden opportunity to win souls for Christ, to lower their nets for a catch as our Lord instructed St. Peter to do (Luke 5:4).
Might it not be a good idea for priests to spend at least part of the day in church, vested in their cassocks, surplices and stoles, ready to accommodate these “Ash Wednesday Catholics” by giving them their ashes whenever they happen to show up while stationing a second priest in the confessional and inviting the visitors to take this opportunity to go to Confession?
It is after all a vague longing to set things right with God that lures these people to church each Ash Wednesday, so why not make it easy for them to go all the way and settle their accounts with God by receiving the Sacrament of Penance?
Yes, perhaps most will turn down the invitation, but if even one of these wandering sheep steps into the confessional, won’t it be worth all the effort? For “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10).