Ashes

Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021424.cfm

But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.
Matthew 6:17-18

Ashes are a sign to remind us that our bodily life is impermanent. Someday we will return to the earth, just as Jesus did. But the grace of our Baptism assures us that we will also rise again, just as Jesus did.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
As we bear the sign of ashes on our foreheads today, we also carry the joy of that Baptismal assurance. Therefore, in a joyful spirit, we offer our hidden prayer of thanksgiving to God for the times in our lives when “ashes” have been transformed to glory.

Poetry: Blessing the Dust – Jan Richardson

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

Music: Ashes by Tom Conry