Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Lent is upon us. Ever since becoming Catholic I have found Lent to be a fascinating and mysterious season. The Liturgy is pared down (no Gloria, no alleluia), decorations become sparse, and of course the strong penitential aspect forces us to take a hard and honest look at our lives. Moreover, we begin Lent with this strange practice of smearing ashes on our heads.

The Masses for Ash Wednesday always get a large crowd. Those who rarely go to Mass, who won’t go even to Christmas or Easter Masses, will go for Ash Wednesday. There’s even a subset of people who won’t go to Mass but will stop by the Church looking for ashes to take home. I’m hoping that one day I will have the chance to ask some of them why this is so important to them. For now, I can only speculate. The ashes are a sign of repentance and humility. Perhaps even those who for the rest of the year have little interest in religion still recognize something deeply and critically important about this sign of penance and of our mortality.

Speaking of dust and mortality, the second chapter of Genesis tells the story of the creation of man:

 “then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)

The man is Adam which is Hebrew for “man, human being”. The word is a riff on the word for earth (adama). It’s interesting how the very name for humanity is rooted in the earth. For all our accomplishments, our advances in technology and knowledge, our spreading over the whole world and even out into space, we are still dust of the earth. The ashes of Ash Wednesday remind us of this reality and therefore of our mortality and the fact that we are not God. We are of the earth and to earth we will return. Ashes remind us of the need for humility.

And yet, there is something special about this dust of the earth. God created the world and all in it by speaking a word. He created Adam by forming him from the earth by His own hands. Yes, we are of the dust of the earth and to dust we shall return. But we are also more than just dust. God breathed into this dust and we became something more. We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are made lovingly and purposefully by His hand.

Before the distribution of ashes, the Roman Missal gives two options for the blessing of ashes. Here is one of them:

 O God, who are moved by acts of humility

and respond with forgiveness to works of penance,

lend your merciful ear to our prayers

and in your kindness pour out the grace of your ⁜ blessing

on your servants who are marked with these ashes,

that, as they follow the Lenten observances,

they may be worthy to come with minds made pure

to celebrate the Paschal Mystery of your Son.

Through Christ our Lord.

God is “moved by acts of humility” or the Latin “humilitatióne flécteris”. God bends or inclines (flécteris) down to us. Think of a mother or father bending down to listen to his or her child or getting down on one knee to come closer to the child’s level. Such is God’s humility. God bends down to us His children by becoming man. Christ humbled himself to share in our humanity as St. Paul says. God comes to us, those whom He formed lovingly from the dust. In coming to us in Christ he bends down to us so as to bring us up to Himself, like the parent then picking the child up. God comes down to us to lift us up by recreating us and filling us with life and grace.  

God bends down (flécteris) in response to our acts of humility (humilitatióne). Only the humble are open to receive from the Lord. Only the humble will embrace the Father who comes down to us in love. Those ashes on our foreheads should reflect a deeper interior disposition. Ashes by themselves will not do anything. They are not magic. Let them reflect the reality of your heart and mind. You are dust. You are mortal and fragile. You are in need of salvation. Acknowledge that, but then turn to your God who bends down to you in response to lift you up.

Image: Personal photo taken during a youth group activity. We bundled up blessed palms from last year’s Palm Sunday to burn for ashes.