THE SMUDGED CROSS

Ash Wednesday


The priest traces a cross of black ashes onto the forehead of each person who comes forward and says “Remember, O man, that dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”

It’s a simple act, profoundly powerful. We begin Lent by remembering that we’re going to die. Pious and faithless, rich and poor, beautiful as well as homely, whatever our sort and condition, we all leave life in a casket. Our “Lenten exercises” (I love the phrase) begin with a reminder that we will end.

Sometimes Christianity is pilloried with the accusation that it seeks to shackle the spirit and enslave the mind. Is there any better proof than this? It wants us to think of death—again and again and again. The great irony is that when I remember—accept, embrace the fact—that I’m going to die, it’s precisely then that the fear and grip of death begins to loosen. When I understand with both mind and heart that my days here are numbered, how precious those days become. The force of a Bach toccata is more powerful, the caress of a breeze on the face more subtle, the embrace of a friend more endearing when we know that one day, all these will be no more. When we remember death, our lives here become infinitely richer.

The black-smudged cross, though, insists on something else. If you are going to die, you are also going to live. That cross is a sign, first marked on you at baptism, that you no longer belong just to yourself. “All things are yours,” cries St Paul, “and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” That black cross is a reminder of His death—and yours. More, it’s a sign that on the Third Day, He tossed death aside. That Ash Wednesday smudge is a promise that He’ll toss yours aside, too.

I hope your ashen cross is big, black and hard to get off. It is your pledge of eternity.