Ash Wednesday

March 5, 2025

Fr. Tim explores the significance of Ash Wednesday and the powerful symbolism of ashes in our spiritual journey. Discover why ashes resonate so deeply within us, representing humility, reflection, and the acknowledgment of our human frailty. Join us as we discuss the importance of this penitential season, the role of silence and patience in personal growth, and how accepting ashes can lead to profound transformation.

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Ash Wednesday is approaching, the day in which we line up churches everywhere to receive ashes. Why are ashes so popular? I think in part because ashes are blunt. They speak to our soul. Ashes are dust soil.

To put on ashes is to say publicly that you are in a penitential mode. Smudging yourself with ashes says this is not a season of celebration, that some important work is going on inside of you, and that you really are the cinders of a dead fire. All old traditions speak about sitting in the ashes. We accept that ashes is our time to grieve some of the things we've done wrong, to refrain from the dance, not to go to the banquet, not to do business as usual, but rather waiting in patience as some silent growth takes place. Accepting ashes, the declaration that it's time for me to be still so that the ashes can do their work.

Accepting ashes humbles us because all of us in our hearts have to admit we don't really understand what the ashes are doing. But it is somehow important on this day, along with all of our neighbors and our long family history, that we need to have ashes and accept that God is being very patient with us and that God will accomplish God's work in us. Remember that you are dust and unto dust, you will return.