Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Ashes

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[Salvation]

Ashes

Ecclesiasticus 7:40 "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin."

 

 
In the 17th. c., a style of painting known as "vanitas painting" became popular (see above). This style included elements that represented temporal bounty - flowers, fruits, etc., and symbols of riches, such as gold and jewels. These gorgeous gifts from God were then juxtaposed with symbols that showed the reality of death, usually a skull, or an hourglasses that symbolized the passage of time.

The point of this style is the moral of which Ecclesiasticus 1 reminds us, "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh..." In other words, the things of this world are transient, and Christians must always keep one eye on the world to come.

Recalling this Truth is one of the principles behind the use of ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten Season of penance: to remind us that we are mortal, subject to the rot and decay our Western culture now desperately tries to euphemize away, and that we are radically dependent on -- solely dependent on -- Jesus Christ to overcome this fate.

They are like a yearly reading of the tombstone inscribed with:

Remember friends as you pass by,
as you are now so once was I.
As I am now so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me.

-- or as one would say in Latin, "Hodie mihi, cras tibi" ("Today me, tomorrow you"). They are a liturgical "memento mori."

In Genesis 3:19 we hear God tell us "for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return," but nowadays, when someone dies, they are rushed from deathbed to funeral home to be embalmed and to be worked over by a make-up artist so that that "dusty reality" is hidden from us. Their deaths are spoken of as almost an embarrassment; "he passed," they say, or "he is no longer with us." These comforting but sterile luxuries weren't an option in the past when plagues felled so many people that there weren't enough survivors to bury them, when bodies had to be stored all winter until the ground was soft enough to dig, when most of the children a woman bore died before they were able to grow up. In our culture, with our medicines and "funeral sciences," we are afraid to look at death, and we are a poorer people because of it. No matter how long science can prolong life, no matter how much embalming fluid is pumped into a corpse, Nature will have her way. This is the hideous Truth. And when Nature has her way, we can either rest in the knowledge that the ultimate Victor is Christ, Our Lord, Who walked out of His tomb 2,000 years ago and offers resurrection to us, or we can believe that decay is all that is left. This is the meaning of Ash Wednesday.

Ashes are used, too, to express the penitence necessary to come to Christ so that we can experience bodily resurrection at the End of the Age.

Job 42:6
Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance in dust and ashes.

The Blessing and Disposition of the Ashes

The ashes are made by the burning of palms from last year's Palm Sunday. The blessing of the ashes begins with an antiphon and a verse of a psalm begging God's grace and mercy. Then come four prayers which express what the ashes symbolize and how they are to be seen and used by us:

1. To be a spiritual help for all who confess their sins.

2. To secure pardon of sins for those who receive the ashes.

3. To give us the spirit of contrition.

4. To give us the grace and strength to do penance.

After the priest sprinkles the ashes with holy water and incenses them, he puts some on his own head, and then on the heads of those present, the head being the seat of pride. He puts them on our foreheads in the shape of a Cross to remind us of our hope, and as he does so, he says the words of Genesis 3:

Meménto, homo, quia pulvis es, et in púlverem revertéris (Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return).

We make no response to these words; we simply return to our pews.

Following the disposition of the ashes come two Antiphons and a Response. Then the priest says another prayer for protection in the coming combat.

After we leave the church, we leave the ashes on our foreheads until they wear off naturally from the course of the day's activities. They are a public witness to those things our society does not wish to embrace: the reality of death, and the hope of resurrection in Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
 
 
Note: another (informal) use of ashes in the Church is the saving of ashes from the fire built on the Eve of the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist (23 June) to mix with water to bless the sick.

[pjr12345]

It seems that your good attitude is fading or your patience with me is worn out. Good bye.

Probably a little of both.

And this is a good place to end it. Enough reason has been put forth. That which lies beyond reason need not be stirred.

Thanks to all for a very good debate!

Proverbs 27:17 -- As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

[Claud]

The example you use to defend un-Scriptural practices doesn’t hold up. Surely others who wish to emulate God’s power as exercised through Paul (or any other Disciple) are just as clearly incorrect as those poor fellows who found out the hard way.

There you go with "un-Scriptural" again LOL.

Says who? It's right there in St. Paul. The sons of Sceva were not even using relics (at least there's no mention of it), and they were doing exorcism, so that's not even germane to our discussion here which is about miraculous healing.

You set up the criteria that only a prophet of God can heal in this way, and a prophey is confirmed by miracles. Do you still stand by that? Because I've got a laundry list of such confirmation if you're open to hearing it.

[pjr12345]

I urge you to read God's Word, let It speak to you, and rather than be conformed to the world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2).

I'm not asking you to take my word, I'm challenging you to follow biblical example and search the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things are so (Acts 17:11); and not just my words but that of your church.

Sadly, I suspect that you love your darkness more than the light (John 3:19), and that you would rather serve the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25), and will continue to choose to be cheated through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8).

If you ever choose to rightly divide the Word of Truth (1Tim 2:15), God will not disappoint.

Given the eternal importance of this subject, don't you owe it to yourself to learn the Truth?

[Claud]

Let’s not spin off into a hundred other quotes that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. You asked for Biblical examples of people using relics and such. We provided at least three, from the time of the Jews, Christ, and St. Paul. To which you replied that those things were only supposed to endure as long as the Apostles and disciples were on earth.

But do you have any Scripture to support that argument? IMHO that opinion—that the time of miracles and healings ended with the Apostles—is a tradition purely of men for which there is absolutely no Scriptural foundation. Which, as you’ve indicated, is a bad thing for us to be doing, no?

[pjr12345]

I made no such request. And I don't appreciate your continuing efforts to distort and contort my words (in addition to Scripture).

Scripture speaks. Each person may choose to do that which is right in his own eyes (Deut 12:8) or choose to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord (Deut 13:18).

I see no future in endless debate.

Goodbye.

[Claud]

My apologies if I have misunderstood. Thank you for the discussion, and may God bless you.