Ash Wednesday
March 5th, 2003
|
|
I do not proclaim to be a theologian
but I do proclaim to being a Christian.
|
| Ash Wednesday is the day Lent begins.
It occurs forty days before Good Friday. Actually, Ash Wednesday
is its colloquial name. Its official name is the Day of Ashes. It is called
Ash Wednesday because, being forty days before Good Friday, it always falls
on a Wednesday and it is called Ash Wednesday because on that day at church
the faithful have their foreheads marked with ashes in the shape of a cross,
because in the Bible a mark on the forehead is a symbol of a person's ownership.
By having their foreheads marked with the sign of a cross, this symbolizes
that the person belongs to Jesus Christ, who died on a Cross. |
| This is in imitation of the spiritual
mark or seal that is put on a Christian in baptism, when he is delivered
from slavery to sin and the devil and made a slave of righteousness and
Christ (Rom. 6:3-18). It is also in imitation of the way the righteousness
are described in the book of Revelation, where we read of the servants
of God (the Christian faithful, as symbolized by the 144,000 male virgins): |
-
"Do not harm the earth or the sea or the
trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads."
(Revelation 7:3)
-
"[The demon locust] were told not to harm
the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those
of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads" (Revelation
9:4)
-
"Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion
stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had
his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." (Revelation
14:1)
This is in contrast to the followers of
the beast, who have the number 666 on their foreheads or hands. |
| The reference to the sealing of the
servants of God for their protection in Revelation is an allusion to a
parallel passage in Ezekiel, where Ezekiel also sees a sealing of the servants
of God for their protection: |
| "And the LORD said to him [one of
the four cherubim], 'Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a
mark [literally, "a tav"] upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan
over all the abominations that are committed in it.' And to the others
he said in my hearing, 'Pass through the city after him, and smite; your
eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity; slay old men outright,
young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one upon
whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.' So they began with the elders
who were before the house." (Ezekiel 9:4-6) |
| Unfortunately, like most modern translations,
the one quoted above (the Revised Standard Version, which we have been
quoting thus far), is not sufficiently literal. What it actually says is
to place a tav on the foreheads of the righteous inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Tav is one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and in ancient script
it looked like the Greek letter chi, which happens to be two crossed lines
(like an "x") and which happens to be the first letter in the word "Christ"
in Greek (christos). The Jewish rabbis commented on the connection between
tav and chi and this is undoubtedly the mark Revelation has in mind when
the servants of God are sealed in it |
| The early Church Fathers seized on
this tav-chi-cross-christos connection and expounded it in their homilies,
seeing in Ezekiel a prophetic foreshadowing of the sealing of Christians
as servants of Christ. It is also part of the background to the Catholic
practice of making the sign of the cross, which in the early centuries
(as can be documented from the second century on) was practiced by using
one's thumb to furrow one's brow with a small sign of the cross, like Catholic
do today at the reading of the Gospel during Mass. |
| Ashes are a biblical symbol of mourning
and penance. In Bible times the custom was to fast, wear sackcloth, sit
in dust and ashes, and put dust and ashes on one's head. While we no longer
normally wear sackcloth or sit in dust and ashes, the customs of fasting
and putting ashes on one's forehead as a sign of mourning and penance have
survived to this day. These are two of the key distinctives of Lent. In
fact, Ash Wednesday is a day not only for putting ashes on one's head,
but also a day of fasting. |
| The ashes also symbolize death and
so remind us of our mortality. Thus when the priest uses his thumb to sign
one of the faithful with the ashes, he says, "Remember, man, that thou
art dust and unto dust thou shalt return," which is modeled after God's
address to Adam (Genesis 3:19; cf. Job 34:15, Psalms 90:3, 104:29, Ecclesiastes
3:20). This also echoes the words at a burial, "Ashes to ashes; dust to
dust," which is based on God's words to Adam in Genesis 3 and Abraham's
confession, "I am nothing but dust and ashes" (Genesis 18:27). It is thus
a reminder of our mortality and our need to repent before this life is
over and we face our Judge. |
| They are made by burning palm fronds
which have been saved from the previous year's Palm Sunday, they are then
blessed by a priest -- blessed ashes having been used in God's rituals
since the time of Moses (Numbers 19:9-10, 17). Palm Sunday was when
the people rejoiced at Jesus' triumphal entrance to Jerusalem. They celebrated
his arrival by waving palm fronds, little realizing that he was coming
to die for their sins. By using palms from Palm Sunday, it is a reminder
that we must not only rejoice of Jesus' coming but also regret the fact
that our sins made it necessary for him to die for us in order to save
us from hell. |
Created for: Diva of the Net
By: Jo ~ IrishCream
[Ash
Wednesday] [Lent]
[The Last Supper]
[The Garden of Gethsemane]
[Good Friday]
[Easter]
[My
Catholic Faith - Site Map]
[Jo's
Kountry Korner]
|
