Ash Wednesday

Just yesterday Christians all over the world celebrated the holiday of Ash Wednesday. This is a morbid holy day: we are reminded of our own mortality, and charged to live a life pleasing to God. As a symbol of this dedication, we spend the days leading up to Easter excersising unique sacrifices and take on new disciplines. As Father David pointed out in his sermon Wednesday night, the sacrifices that we are undertake are truly insignificant in the scope of the call of Christ: we are called to become righteous, and giving up meat for 40 days doesn't and can't accomplish that purpose. But it may remind us of this purpose, and reinvigorate our striving toward righteousness. Of course, we can never hope to attain perfect righteousness on our own, but perhaps there is some hope in the ministry of the Holy Spirit (certainly we are not sinful in the life to come. I think that it is the Church that calls us to this discipline is an apt reminder of our personal insufficeincy (that is that it symbolizes the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work in our lives).

Here is the Prayer Book's exhortation in the Ash Wednesday service:

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great
devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and
it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a
season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided
a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy
Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of
notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful
were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to
the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation
was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set
forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all
Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the
observance of a holy Lent, by self examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self denial; and by reading and
meditating on God’s holy Word.

The whole BCP is provided by the Episcopal Church on-line: Book of Common Prayer

Lent exists because Easter exists, just as Christ died that He might be raised again. Therefore it seems proper to me that we enter into a time of penitence yearly, in rememberance of the lowering that Christ himself undertook.

I prepared for Ash Wednesday by reading T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday, a longish poem that draws on the same themes that this day addresses in the Church's life. I recommend it to any who is interested: Ash Wednesday