What’s that on your forehead?
Pictured, Monk’s skulls in the charnel house at St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai.
On Ash Wednesday, many people walk around with black crosses on their foreheads. It reminds me of monk’s skulls, sometimes marked with a cross. In Europe, the skulls are marked with crosses and the date of death. In Churches throughout the world, ashes are imposed as a sign of penance and a reminder of death
Some of the people I saw today looked as if the priest had been somewhat overzealous and nearly covered their entire forehead. Others had perfectly symmetrical crosses, marked very neat and clean. A couple had neat little ”dot” crosses. When I was young, that’s how the priests always did it. Nowadays, with lay people distributing ashes, depending upon their seriousness and perhaps fervor, the ashes seem to be more pronounced.
In Europe, the custom remains to sprinkle the ashes over the bowed head, just as it is done in many monastic communities. Someone told me that in Puerto Rico people receive the mark of ashes, yet brush them away on their return to their pew. (I usually wipe them away before I leave Church. As everyone who knows me knows, I think it looks dumb.)
However, it is a good witness to walk around with ashes on your forehead all day. It makes people think. It reminds people Lent has started.
Nevertheless, I had this irresistable urge to wipe them off people today, or to ask, “What’s on your forehead?” (Within seconds, I recalled they were wearing their ashes.) One woman had ashes on her nose, and I so wanted to tell her to clean up. All day, I was surprised to see the same people still had their ashes on their foreheads.
It’s one of the ironies of our religion. Today’s Gospel clearly instructs us:
“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden…” - Matthew 6
A friend from Europe told me it is an American tradition to wear ashes on the forehead. I imagine they do it in Canada as well. (Although - I wouldn’t be surprised if the ashes on the forehead thing isn’t something the Irish came up with.)
When I was in Catholic school, the nuns told us it was a sin to brush them off. It’s not.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:28 pm
When I was growing up, I think my Mom had taken what the nuns apparently told her to heart; she wouldn’t let us brush them off! The ashes were a little itchy, and of course, you can FEEL them there. But we had to leave them on and Mom said it was “penance” to have to leave it there and walk around like that. It taught us humility.
I’m older now, but I don’t have to worry about whether or not to brush them off; I go to Mass after work and then home, so I do keep them on kind of in observance of the way Mom raised us, but no one knows about it.
Oh, Shoot! Now everyone who reads this knows! (do I have a dilemma here? Do I have to take them off now?)
February 21st, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Terry, the retention of the ashes can be a kind of evangelization: the ashes could serve as a reminder to fallen-away Catholics as to the fact that Lent is here (and thus give them occasion to think about where they’re at). It might also prompt some questions by non-Catholics and non-believers that can lead to fruitful conversations. What Jesus was condemning was the desire to appear holy and righteous in the eyes of others. It wasn’t a blanket condemnation of visible expressions of piety. No doubt there could be Catholics who do retain their ashes throughout the day because of Pharisee-like motivations, but please do not assume the worst. Note, too, that the condemnation of visible acts was made to individuals who were attempting to show other members of their own community (their fellow Jews) how holy they were. Yet clearly the practices of the Jews as ordained by God did, in fact, set them apart from the surrounding pagan cultures. So I see public acts (saying grace in restaurants, retention of ashes) not as a way of showing other Catholics how much holier I am than they, but I am showing a fairly pagan culture that I am different, and that difference might pique interest and even conversation.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:02 am
In Canada we do get ashes. I wiped most of mine off before I went back to work and still got some odd looks.
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:45 am
This post reminds me of the time a priest accidentally sprinkled my entire face with ashes, while he was just trying to make the little cross. I was quite a spectacle. It was really pretty funny, and my husband and I were both trying not to laugh for the duration of the Mass.
We had a beautiful Mass last night, though; they even sang “Attende Domine” in Latin.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:33 am
I go to 7 PM mass, wear them home, and wipe them off at bedtime. If I could go to 8 AM mass I would wear it to work. It would be difficult for me to cope with the staring or questions, but salutary I think, given how fraidy cat I am about public expression of religious faith. I shouldn’t be.
Warren
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I forget that they’re there, & then am startled when I look in the mirror…
+
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Thank you Terry for a great post.
On Ash Wednesday one year ago watching the national news I saw Senator Joe Biden politicking with a large smudge of ashes on his forehead
I assumed he had confessed and repented his pro-choice votes of the past and promised never to do it again.
I know I am being judgementa–which I will have to remember to confess.
Jack
Jack
February 23rd, 2007 at 5:37 am
Just to make you laugh: the RSM Sisters who taught me in grade school had a stiff white cup that covered their foreheads completely. The priests had to give them ashes on the bridge of their nose, which we children found hysterically funny. For the nuns who wore glasses, the ashes were a little lower. Some of us thought that they should receive ashes on the chin . . . or on both cheeks.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
When I lived in New Orleans, it always bothered me that tourists came to cut loose for Mardi Gras, but had no inkling that for locals it was the prelude to a season of penance.
Where I live now in the South, Baptists and other Protestants greatly outnumber Catholics, who are almost entirely from elsewhere. People have no clue about Ash Wednesday, hardly the situation of the Pharisee in the Gospel. So I wear them all day.
“There’s something on your forehead.”
“I am Catholic. It is Ash Wednesday.”
February 24th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Brett - That is a very good point. I really don’t think it is comparable to the Pharisees at all.
Reflecting upon the practice, I’m sure it originated because Catholics were a minority at one point in most of the country and it was always a witness to our faith.
It remains a very good practice and I’m vain and worldly - that’s why I think it looks dumb and I wipe them off.