Why has Ash Wednesday become so important?

Since I have been chaplain, which is about four years now, I have noticed that Ash Wednesday is a big religious day at SMU. This year it falls on Feb. 21.

Sometimes I see students, who are not at Mass every Sunday, but they show up for Ash Wednesday services and they are willing to stand in a long line to get their ashes. I have had students who come late for either our noon liturgy at the Chapel of the Annunciation (at the Neuhoff Catholic Center) or our 5:15 pm liturgy at Perkins Chapel, and --- even though they missed the Mass --- ask me for ashes afterwards. Helping students express their faith in this way has led to one of my own special personal, spiritual experiences at SMU.

The importance of Ash Wednesday in the minds of many Catholics now rivals Christmas and Easter as the holiest and most well-attended liturgies in the church calendar.

Why Ash Wednesday has taken on these dimensions when it is not a holy day of obligation nor a major feast day is an interesting topic of discussion.

One cleric suggested to me that Ash Wednesday is a well-attended liturgy at SMU and elsewhere because it is a particularly “Catholic thing.” However, that seems to belie the fact that other Christian denominations celebrate Ash Wednesday and at SMU the day is marked with the distribution of ashes at non-Catholic services, such as the university ecumenical services, and at Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian and even at some non-traditional church services.

Most SMU students by the end of the day on Feb. 21 will have little ash crosses or smudges on their foreheads, it seems to me.

This interest in Ash Wednesday is a good thing. Certainly, we as Christians begin the Lenten season in the right way by getting our ashes and also by fasting --- eating no meat and only one main meal --- on Ash Wednesday. Lent is our penitential period when we prepare ourselves for our holiest day, Easter --- the day we mark to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. On the way of the cross, we remember the passion of Jesus.

The name dies cinerum (day of ashes) probably dates from at least the eighth century. On this day all the faithful according to ancient custom are exhorted to approach the altar before the beginning of Mass, and there the priest, deacon or lay minister, dipping his thumb into ashes previously blessed, marks the forehead of each the sign of the cross, saying the words: "Remember that thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return." The ashes used in this ceremony are made by burning the remains of the palms blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year.

There can be no doubt that the custom of distributing the ashes to all the faithful arose from a devotional imitation of the practice observed in the case of public penitents. In the books both of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the men (Why not women, too?) who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth.

We don’t do the sackcloth thing here at SMU (Does anyone know what sackcloth is?). However, we do take ashes as a sign of our humanity and our repentance for the sins that we have committed as humans.

So Ash Wednesday has become as real visible sign of our religious feelings and yearnings. If you have ashes publicly on your head, it is hard to deny that you are Christian. It is a little act of brave faith in the modern world, I think.

I, as your chaplain, admire your faith and will remain available on Ash Wednesday until the last student has his or her ashes.