![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I press my thumb into the soft mixture of burnt palm branches and oil, looking into the eyes of our parishioners and uttering the reminder: “From dust you were made, and to dust you shall return.” The pastoral act of applying ashes in an Ash Wednesday service is sobering. The passage in Ezekiel is particularly interesting: “And the Lord said to him, ‘Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.’” The Hebrew word for “mark” is “tav” (transliterated, anyway) and, significantly, it was written as a sort of cross-shaped letter, leading Tertullian to remark that God had given to Ezekiel “the very form of the cross.” The Scriptures frequently refer to ashes as a sign of repentance for sin or mourning (Esther 4:3, Job 42:5-6, Jonah 3:4-6, Ezekiel 9:4, etc.), and while the Lenten ashes are ashes of mourning over sin, they are also “hopeful ashes,” made in the sign of the Christ’s cross, our only hope. ![]() Many will solemnly observe Ash Wednesday, gathering for a service of contrition and repentance, including the “imposition of ashes” – the application of ashes in the sign of the cross on the forehead. For those of us on the “Western” calendar, the Lenten season begins today. ![]()
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