Loading ...Happy Ash Wednesday or, if you don’t want the partying to stop, happy Mercredi Gras.
There is a long-standing Catholic tradition of ceremoniously rubbing ash on the foreheads of the faithful to remind them that they are all sinners. In my childhood, this was accompanied by my preacher saying in his heavy Cajun accent:
“Mais, t-boy, you know dat ittis from da doust dat choo com from, and it’s toda dust dat choo gonna go back too, you.”
Or, if you want to say it like “dose people on da noowes” would say it:
“Little child, remember that it was from dust that you were made, and it is to dust that you shall return.”
Uplifting stuff, this religion.
Today nearly all of my city’s 100,000 Catholics proudly brandished this mark of their corruption. I find Ash Wednesday’s high turnout to be particularly interesting. It is not a “holy day of obligation,” so it doesn’t wield the threat of a “mortal sin” upon those that don’t attend. And yet, despite being a completely optional ceremony, almost every Catholic will go out of their way to make sure that they are tagged.
I’d put money on the staunchest papists not being able to name all of the holy day of obligation, but I bet that the majority of them just spent the past couple hours running around and giving spiritually-inspired high fives to each other. “You’re a sinner? Oh! Me, too! Go us! Original sin for the win!!!”
I’d double down that this curious behavior is based on the intense urge that people feel to be a part of something important.
And I’d put my bottom dollar that it’s part of the same irrational, undefendable, damaging incentive that makes people think that they should only vote for a candidate that is likely to win.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Ryan // Feb 7, 2008 at 6:39 am
I actually find Ash Wednesday to be quite uplifting — there’s freedom in recognizing that everyone just might be as big of a screw-up as you are. I have made similar observations, though, and my more cynical side would agree that everyone just wants to be a part of something; is that a bad thing? I think it’s good that at least ONE day a year we can get out of our staunch individualist mindset and be part of something bigger. I know you pride yourself on being somewhat aloof from the traps of Catholic Orthodoxy, but I think Ash Wednesday is a damn good thing — it reminds people that they aren’t perfect or immortal, and that everyone is in the same boat they are.
Another thing to consider is that we live in Louisiana, and Catholicism is so horrendously inculturated that it bears little meaning to many (enter: Mardi Gras/fish-fries and seafood buffets on Fridays). For many, “Getting your ashes” is just something YOU DO, not something meaningful. Of course, you know this.
Finally, you know “papist” is a pejorative term, right?
2 Daniel M // Feb 7, 2008 at 6:55 am
“I actually find Ash Wednesday to be quite uplifting — there’s freedom in recognizing that everyone just might be as big of a screw-up as you are.”
^I like that.
According to my dictionary, it’s “usually” a disparaging term. I’m not super-familiar with it, so I assumed that I could use it and not be too heavily anti-Catholic, which is something that I don’t want to be. I respect the Catholic Church. I think that it is a force of good in the world, and I know that Catholicism has helped me through hard times in the past.
But I did mean for it to be at least a little disparaging. I find the idea of complete surrender to the intellectual authority of the pope to be a bit disgusting and, at times, silly. Saint Ignatius said that if the pope says that black is white, then that makes it so. I don’t like that. I read 1984 at too young of an age to go for that sort of thing. I can’t see Jesus approving of that sort of thinking.
But, if it works for you, maybe I shouldn’t disparage it too much.
3 Mark // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:01 am
I always found it amusing that on Ash Wednesday, the gospel readings urge us to pray in the privacy of our rooms, keeping our faces clean while fasting. And what do we do after the homily? Put dirt on our faces, and we aren’t supposed to brush it off, either. I’m sorry but that never made sense to me.
Daniel, you’d probably find some of my thesis sources on the popish pestilence and jesuitical jihadists (okay, I made that one up) quite amusing.
4 Numeraphile // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:08 am
I love telling people that Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation. It blows their mind. They tell me I’m a liar and curse me. I learned that fact myself during my Confirmation training, so I wasn’t able to use it on my MONDO-Catholic grandmother. She probably would have hit me if I so much as implied Ash Wed wasn’t mandatory.
I think this year was the first one I skipped. Felt kinda weird. Protestants accuse Catholicism of focusing on all of the burdonsome rituals–I dare say Ash Wednesday is a prime example of what they’re critiquing. Can we say the increased turnout is because people want to go through the motions, get their ‘holy’ ashes, and avoid divine repercussions?
I compare it to putting your hand over your heart during the National Anthem. No where is it written that you have to do it, nobody else in the world does it, and you get snubbed if you don’t join the mob.
5 Ryan // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:14 am
Considering that “papist” is a favoured term of anti-Catholic nutjobs, i.e. Jack Chick (http://www.chick.com/default.asp), and even your everyday Puritanitcal colonial anti-Catholics, ca. 1600s, I’m not sure you’d want to put yourself in their intellectual or linguistic company.
Although I completely understand your viewpoint, and even have my own “loving disagreement” with the Chuch, I will (to the best of my ability) fiercely defend her right to assert truth claims. The ultimate question is whether or not we’d like to have a spiritual authority who says “Well, this is what I think is true, but heeeeyyy, whatevs,” or one who is willing to assert Truth. Several things must be kept in mind. First, the Pope does not just make claims ex cathedra, willy-nilly. Decades, and occasionally centuries, of prayer often go into any given decree. Even so, we find that the core doctrine, our creedo, remains unchanged.
Moreover, at some point we must place a little faith in the Holy Spirit that, slow and dumb as His Church may be, He will guide us. Of course, history is riddled with the Church mucking up the teachings of Christ and failing to hear the whisper of the Spirit, but it is similarly filled with beautiful and courageous stories of popes, religious, and laity living out the rough teachings of Christ — simple hagiography teaches us that.
I submit that it is better to have an individual, e.g. the Pope, make a strong statement (such as one against abortion or stem-cell research) than to have an invertebrate See who is too afraid to face a world filled with evil men willing to make strong claims themselves.
As for Jesus, who is going to tell the Musician how to play His own song? What about the appeal to spiritual authority in the book of Acts, i.e. the Church of Jerusalem? Jesus was perhaps anti-Imperialist, but not anti-authoritarian per se. Doesn’t His submission to the tortures of the Empire teach us that? He questioned the spiritual authority of His day, and we should certainly do the same! But there comes a point where we have to admit that we, after all, may have to submit to something other than our own intellect. But then, I don’t want to digress into a discussion about sacrament of Holy Orders.
6 Daniel M // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:18 am
Mark, shoot it at me. I’d probably enjoy it.
daniel.freetime@gmail.com
Ryan, you make some good points.
7 Ryan // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:25 am
Dustin –
Is Ash Wednesday really *that* burdensome? I still say we have to keep our culture in mind and realize that Catholics in Louisiana are different than Catholics elsewhere in the U.S. It’s so inculturated here — it’s not a faith for faith’s sake, but a part of the culture at large. Now, in all instances, that’s not bad — but especially in the case of Lent, it does get excessively pharisiical.
Mark –
I don’t think Christ is arguing against all outward signs of penance, but is rather attacking those whose goal is praise rather than contrition. If your goal is to merely “get your ashes” so that men will say “oooo” and “ahhh” and “how holy! What a great sinner! And so humble too!” then yes, I think Christ is talking to you. If it is merely an outward sign of an inward conversion, it is a difficult beast altogether. If we were going to take a literal approach, then all public prayer would be banished, which is nonsense.
8 Numeraphile // Feb 7, 2008 at 10:00 am
I don’t think Ash Wednesday is burdensome. Then again, I’m biased. I had a lot of Protestant friends growing up, and they didn’t have the same opinion I do. But, when you start to look at all the bells and whistles as a whole, they add up (fasting, penance, Confirmation, holy days of obligation, the rosary) and definitely spook non-papists. I actually had a friend who thought Catholics were going to hell because they never prayed to God or Jesus or read the Bible. (don’t worry, I corrected his ignorance)
Also, I have no qualms with the word ‘papist.’ A dear friend of mine is a Baptist from the sticks of Watson and he referred to me and my CtK friends as papists. I thought it was an awesome word. Sure, he used it in a teasing manner, but the only way taboo words can hurt us is if we let them. I constantly refer to myself as a roundeye, a cracker, a gringo, and The White Man…especially around my ethnic friends.
9 Ryan // Feb 7, 2008 at 11:44 am
Dustin –
My only problem with “papist” is its intent and connotation. Historically, it has been used to disparage Catholics — so, that would be strike one (is there anyone who is actually FOR disparaging terms? I mean, in a serious sense?). But second, the connotation is that we worship the Pope — as though the Bishop of Rome were Christ Himself. While being innocent enough superficially, it reflects a very clear (but subtle) implication on the part of speaker — Catholics worship a man. And not only a man, but an Italian (historically)!
Anyway, I won’t put up any more of a fight about six letters — I just don’t like to imagine my friends/associates being in the same linguistic catagory as lunatics like Jack Chick.
10 Brad Doyle // Feb 7, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I’m sorry Daniel. I’m apologizing now, because I originally didn’t want to comment on this post but then I thought that you wouldn’t have posted it if you didn’t want people to comment so here it goes.
“the mark of their corruption”?
I would say that the cross is the mark of all of our salvation. So therefore, the cross out of ashes is a reminder that we are human, fallen, and because of original sin needed redemption. That redemption came through the cross.
I once met a hippie at a drum circle in Asheville, NC (cliche I know) who was telling me about Jesus, salvation, etc., and when he noticed my cross he was appalled. He said that he wouldn’t wear an ax in memory of his mother if she were to be murdered with an ax. I thought about it a lot, and realized that the cross is quite scandalous. But it is in that scandal, of God, the omnipotent, omniscient Logos becoming man and not only that but dying, that is our salvation. I’m sure Satan felt duped on the ressurection day. “O crap I thought I had won!” No, he lost and in humiliating fashion. God just flipped it around on the “Evil One”. Man fell by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and is raised by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life. The tree is the cross, and the fruit is that fruit of the Blessed Virgin’s womb, Jesus Christ. That is why we get the cross of ashes. It isn’t so much, wallowing in our pitiful sinfulness, but acknowledging that we are sinful and broken but by Christ’s action on the cross we are redeemed and brought out of that sinfulness. It is more of a looking foreword to Easter/ Hope/ Life than a looking back to Sin/ Death.
And whats so wrong with acknowledging our death. Atheist or Theist, we will all die. And thinking about it every once in a while helps to keep things in perspective and in check. Fir the believing Christian, we know that (sorry Ryan) we aren’t mortal, our souls that is. We have immortal souls. We were created by God and will exist for eternity; either in the “halls of inexpressible light” or “unconsumed fire”, so it definitely puts things in perspective. And even then, we believe in a bodily resurrection.
11 Lauren // Feb 8, 2008 at 10:40 pm
So, just out of curiosity, getting dust or ashes or whatever the stuff is on your forehead, do you find that humiliating or something? Does it bother you that you have an outward admittance to imperfection? Or are you scared to show that sign because you think you’re perfect? That is the ONLY complaint I can see from having ashes on your head…. And no one has the right to make that claim..
Also, someone mentioned that “we’re supposed to pray in our rooms, in secret, yet we have ashes on our heads..” Ashes are not “prayers” and things to show off… Rather, they are signs of humility, signs of saying, “I am not perfect, I am not above anyone…” They show reliance on God, which is a beautiful thing! It shows that you realize that you plus your creator equals a beautiful relationship and instrument of salvation for others..
This custom is not there to tell you, “YOU ARE UNWORTHY AND SINFUL… DIE!”.. It is there to help us! To tell us, “Yes you are delicate, weak, and human.. It’s ok! Now live your life with love and trust.. Do your best with your Creator’s help to overcome sin so that you can join your Father in Heaven!”
Ashes, I think, are a beautiful sign of “BRING IT ON!! I’M DOING LIFE RIGHT THIS TIME!”
12 Stir it. // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:12 am
[…] should probably reply to all of those comments left on my last post. It probably won’t win me any friends, but, whatever, I know too many […]
Leave a Comment