Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.
Each Ash Wednesday during my eight years at St. Leo the Great School, we were marched up the center aisle of church, class by class, a single file of boys alongside a single file of girls, to be reminded of our mortality.
For the first four or five years, we knelt on the red velvet cushion at the Communion altar rail; after Vatican II dictated the rail’s removal, we inched forward in that same center aisle in those same single-file lines.
It was years before I realized the black schmutz that was being absolutely mashed into my forehead with that scary prayer was supposed to be in the shape of a cross, not merely the pastor’s thumbprint, and that the blessed ashes came from the burning of the previous year’s palms, not what we emptied out of the pencil sharpener.
It was years before I understood why we were being reminded that life is short:
We have only so much time to do good, to care for each other and to care for all of Creation as a sign of God’s Spirit within us. So get cracking!
It was even longer before I fully understood that this prayer leaves out the best part:
Through his painful crucifixion and glorious Resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death and made a home for us in Heaven.
When to dust our mortal bodies return, to our loving Almighty Creator our immortal souls return.
May this Lent offer us all 40 days of quiet times and thin places to meet our loving God.
