Ashes on forehead are visible sign of our faith

During Ash Wednesday service, we were marked with the sign of the cross and told, “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

As a day of repentance, we were reminded of our own mortality and called to take stock of our lives and actions.

On the morning of Ash Wednesday, I walked into my morning class and began setting up for class. Lowering the projector, logging into the computer, taking out my notes and organizing my students’ quizzes took up the majority of my time.

When I looked up, I noticed that most of my class had arrived, and that of my twenty-five students, only one had the smudged cross on his forehead. Now, I teach in the early morning, so it wasn’t too big of a surprise to me to see only one student with the external mark of Christianity. In fact, I hadn’t received my ashes yet, since I was waiting to attend Mass in the afternoon.

During the homily, the priest called our attention to the marked difference in the messages from the first reading of Joel to the Gospel of Matthew.

In Joel, there is emphasis on celebration and visible signs: “Blow the trumpet in Zion! … call an assembly; gather the people, notify the congregation.”

In Matthew, however, there is an emphasis on secrecy: “Take care not to perform these righteous deeds in order that people may see them.”

While some might wonder at the contradiction, I think it is an apt testament to the sign of our ashes. By “wearing” our ashes, we aren’t showing off our faith in a performative manner. Rather, they are visible signs of our mortality.

At the same time, they can be likened to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” in that we are literally branded: we are members of the Catholic faith, and we notify ourselves and others that we belong to Christ’s flock.

Working at a Jesuit university, it isn’t much of a surprise to see external signs of our faith around campus: the church, campus ministry, crucifixes, statues, etc. What I did notice, however, was that as the day wore on, there was an increasing number of students walking around with ashes on their forehead: a visible sign of their own personal faith.

On no other day during the year do we see such external, visible signs of our faith. On no other day do we even stop to think about the religious preferences of our neighbors.

We often hear that younger generations are neglecting their religious upbringing, that the numbers of church attendance among the youth are falling. However, as I attended the campus ministry fish fry, I couldn’t help but be astonished at the number of students surrounding me with
smudged, sometimes faintly visible crosses.

Too often, we hear of people in the professional world who couldn’t get to Mass on Ash Wednesday. Granted, it isn’t a holy day of obligation, and certainly, there are some times when we simply cannot get away from work. But I couldn’t help but notice that despite the stress of mid-terms and the excitement of spring break on the horizon, there was a multitude of young Catholics who had taken an hour to reflect on the sacrificial nature of Lent.

Heather Bozant Witcher can be reached at hbozantwitcher@clarionherald.org.