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February 21, 2007“Remember you are dust…”
*** Rose Castorini: I just want you to know no matter what you do, you’re gonna die, just like everybody else. Cosmo Castorini: Thank you, Rose. For all intents and purposes, that exchange is essentially what priest and penitent are saying to each other today, Ash Wednesday, if the priest dares it. Did you get your ashes today? Are you sitting there looking at your computer and seeing in its reflection your forehead marked with a cross? Does it startle you and leave you thinking, “oh yeah, today I have made a public declaration that I am a sinner who belongs to Christ. I wear the mark of the penitent.” I like what Greg Kandra* writes here: But for this day, at this moment, it is marked. We are flawed. We have work to do. [...] Ash Wednesday is a day of atonement, but a day of testimony, too. It is a day when we proclaim ourselves as Christians, as followers of the Way - even when the Way leads to nothing but the remnants of an extinguished flame, brushed with a thumb against the brow, as crumbs fall to the floor and we feel the warm residue stick. We go outside, into the February chill, and can see others similarly marked, heading to work. We’ll catch sight of it in the bathroom mirror, or the glass of a revolving office door, and see ourselves as others see us: unclean, unwashed. Stained. And we will feel connected to something older and richer than anything we’ve known. A few years ago a deacon pal and I were discussing ashes. He was helping to distribute them for the first time in his parish and was trying to decide if he would use the old smudge-formula, “Remember you are dust and into dust you shall return,” or if he would forego that for the “new, improved, feel-good” formula, “Turn away from sin and believe the Gospel.” I could only tell him that I didn’t need to be treated like a delicate flower with some benign advice about believing the Gospel. “If we’re Christians and we’re there receiving ashes, isn’t it pretty much a given that we’re already believing the Gospel? No, please, say it the old way - it’s a pithy reminder that we should ask ourselves - if we die tomorrow - have we been living our lives to right purpose? We hear nothing but happy platitudes about our specialness from the rest of the world (and too many lecterns) every single day. For this one day, let us face some cold, hard truth.” He wrote me the other day that he remembered that conversation and that this year he will be reminding people that they are dust…I’m glad. We need to hear it from time to time, that no matter what we do we’re going to die. It helps one take stock of things and reminds me of a comment that Buster made this week. He was looking at a front page picture and headline about Britney Spears and her shaved head and he mused, “so, this is what someone does with his life…follows people around taking pictures of them having some sort of breakdown…and maybe he thinks that’s all God made him for. If he’s thinking at all.” Ash Wednesday is a good time to take a look at how we’re living our lives, which are over quickly. Are we fully living the lives for which God loved us into being, or just treading water waiting for the next wave? How are we managing our time and talents? Are we fully utilizing the gifts with which we (every one of us) were born? Are we sharing them, being generous with them? What about the rest of our time - the few weeks or decades we have left? Maybe you haven’t murdered anyone this week, but have you been indulging in some so-called “innocent gossip” at work today? Is that what you were born for? Have you been sitting at your computer for four hours tapping out one vile word after another in an unstoppable seizure of hate for anyone with whom you disagree? Is that the purpose for which you were begotten - loved into being? Have you been slacking off at home, taking people for granted? Is that what you do with the love that has been given to you? Seen in the light of eternity our lives are mere momentary blips, little flashes here and gone, noted only by the Eternal, who waits for our return, who says, “come back to me, with all your heart…” (Hosea 14:2-10). Today, we acknowledge that we are finite, that we will not last, and that all of our fusses and furies won’t matter much, really, in the end. But our love - how much we have loved, or how little - that will define us, both in this life and the next. In a world and an era where humility is for losers, we take a little time to let ourselves be humbled. And in that humility, we find some commonality, and perhaps inspiration to do better - to work on ourselves a bit - and to seek reconciliation where we can. Meanwhile, if you’re interested, you can listen to a bit of Lent-y music, sung by Buster back when he was 16. He sounds much bigger, more open and manly these days. *UPDATE: Kandra, editor of Couric and Company, is soon-to-be-ordained a Permanent Deacon in the Catholic Church. He writes about distributing ashes at the office. A good read. Additional reading: http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/02/21/remember-you-are-dust/trackback/ 5 Responses to ““Remember you are dust…”” |
February 21st, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Yes, but –
The “old-fashioned” ritual (which I received this morning), is “Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.”
The important thing is not the stilted personal pronouns, but rather the direct communication from the priest to all of us, “Man.” The preposition “unto” signals a future time rather than merely that factual “into.”
This is sort of like a game of telephone where a child whispers a message to the first of ten others. When the tenth child says it out loud, all laugh because invariably the message has been garbled.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Excellent post. I was thinking about that today. I received my ashes from the Franciscan church my office. I admit that I am not as church going as I used to be. (When I lived in Brooklyn, my uncle was a friend of the Pastor and if I was not in church on Sunday, he would ask my uncle if I was alright!)
I think it important to be reminded that this life is but an instant. I find the old formula much better.
Though the Franciscan Father did add afterwards — “Have a prayful Lent” — an addition I think was very correct.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:12 pm
This year, for the first time in many years, I am actually observing Lent. I think it has something to do with the enormous unburdening of my soul that took place on Christmas Day which has led to greater acceptance on my part of the Beloved. What I find most interesting is that non-Catholics (other than Jews) really do not GET what Lent is all about. Fascinating.
By the way - Room 237 - my father was a friend of our Pastor and my every failing was dutifully reported to my Dad - and my father wasn’t even CATHOLIC! And since I possessed a “smart mouth” (apparently from the cradle) which was really nothing more than a proclivity for asking inconvenient questions, I was ALWAYS in trouble!
Buster is a treasure!
February 21st, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[...] Art, Bad Art & why boomers tick me off. Those damned anti-Clintites strike again! “Remember you are dust…” Hitchens and moi? A convalescent turn about the ’sphere Eloquent Solutions to tough problems [...]
February 21st, 2007 at 11:27 pm
[...] Good Art, Bad Art & why boomers tick me off. Those damned anti-Clintites strike again! Geffen! “Remember you are dust…” Hitchens and moi? A convalescent turn about the ’sphere Eloquent Solutions to tough problems [...]