Notebook
An Ash Wednesday scene in a home in our parish last week. John, a farmer, comes home after his day’s work is done. His daughter Clara is sitting at the kitchen table studying for her Leaving Certificate. John immediately notices that Clara is sporting a very big black cross on her forehead which she informs him, somewhat smugly, she has applied herself. Dad smiles but then notices his wife with no cross visible on her forehead. He enquires as to why his beloved has not followed their daughter’s good example? John’s wife, Maureen explains that she was waiting for him to come home. She is going to place the cross on his forehead and then he will return the compliment. Before this intimate little ritual they say together the short prayer that came with the bag of ashes which they picked up at the village shop; “May these ashes remind us of God’s invitation to us to repent from sin and to follow him”.
Mass
In any other year, pre-Covid, John and Maureen might have managed to get to Mass on Ash Wednesday but would be unlikely to persuade their teenage daughter to join them. They would have queued up with perhaps a hundred fellow parishioners and received the ashes from the local priest. That too would have been an important moment for them and a faith encounter in the company of their neighbours and friends. What happened this year was a more intimate affair and no less a faith encounter. It was also an expression of what Pope Francis loves to talk about, ‘the domestic Church’.
I feel I may owe the environmentalists a little apology but there was something of an ash cloud over our parish last Wednesday. Like so many other parishes we were challenged to be creative about how to mark Ash Wednesday this year. A decision was made to put together a little DIY kit for the day or ‘a goody bag’ as the local radio station called it. We filled 400 bags which each containing a sachet of ashes, a little bottle of holy water and the previously mentioned prayer card. They were delivered on Monday morning to our two churches, two local shops and the SuperValu supermarket in the town. We asked that people only take one bag per family. By lunchtime most of the 400 bags had gone. The next two days were spent trying to replenish the stocks and in the end we managed 750 bags but that fell way short of demand.
Normal
Now what was all that about? In a normal year we might have a few hundred people come to Mass on Ash Wednesday but here we are talking about a few thousand people wanting to mark their foreheads with a cross of ash at the beginning of Lent. Was it simply that something, anything, was being given out for free? Interestingly, the shopkeepers all told me that most people were looking for the non-existent donation box so they could pay for the bag! Was it the inclusion of the bottle of holy water which I realise many people have not had access to in almost a year?
I really don’t know the answer to my questions but the experience has caused me to reflect again on the importance of simple signs, symbols and rituals which have always been central to our Catholic Faith. Is it also too much to suggest that for many people, Faith has become more important during this time of pandemic? Ashes symbolise and remind us of our frailty, vulnerability and mortality. For many of us, the experience of the last year has done the same.
A Prayer for Lent
Truly dust we are, and to dust we shall return;
And truly yours we are, and to you we shall return.
Help us to discover you
In our loneliness and in community,
In our emptiness and in our fulfilment,
In our sadness and in our laughter.
Help us to find you when we ourselves are lost.
Help us to follow you on the journey to Jerusalem
To the waving palms of the people’s hope,
To their rejection, to the cross and empty tomb.
Help us to perceive new growth amid the ashes of the old.
Help us, carrying your cross, to be signs of your kingdom.
AMEN
– Jan Sutch Pickard
Double Dutch
Two Irish sailors were at Mass in Amsterdam. As the Mass was in Dutch they were not sure what was being said so decided on the following plan, that whatever the man in front of them would do they would also do immediately. In this way they hoped to avoid notice. Halfway through the sermon the man in front stood up and the two Irish lads were on their feet straight away. However, there was no one else standing. As a matter of fact everyone else seemed amused or embarrassed by the whole affair. And, so, red faced and embarrassed they crept around to the sacristy afterwards to find out what had gone wrong. “Well”, said the priest in broken English. “I announced we were going to have a Baptism and I asked would the father of the child please stand up!”