Why ashes on Ash Wednesday? Ashes were an OT sign of mourning. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and he relents over disaster.” Hear the prophet Joel: “Yet even now,” declare the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning and rend your hearts, not your garments. I guess you could say one reason we do ashes on Ash Wednesday is because we submit to the traditions of the Church rather than trying to correct everything that we think could be better or more pure, but there are better reasons. To be sure, the imposition of ashes, is about 600 years old, sort of a new comer to liturgical practice, but not nearly as young as corporate confession and absolution or the use of colors to symbolize seasonal emphasis. After all, what’s the point of having Ash Wednesday without ashes? They, of course, are on to something. People always ask me, “Are you going to do the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday?” They know I’m one of those “liturgical types”, and we’re one of those “liturgical” churches whose attendance is flat because we don’t have a drum set in the chancel, so they figure we’re naturally going to be slinging the ashes on Ash Wednesday. Here is a re-write that I could say “amen” to: But I don’t find his actual arguments here to be persuasive. He is certainly free to guide his parish as he sees best in these things.
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