Why Ashes?

This morning I went to the 6:45 a.m. Ash Wednesday mass at St. Anthony's of Padua, Fresno. After mass, a lay eucharistic minister crossed my forehead with ashes and said, "Repent and believe in the Gospel." She said it very, very quietly, and I might have missed the command, except that Monsignor Rob was booming it out so everyone in St. Anthony's could hear. I enjoyed that loud proclamation. My ash cross did not come out looking as neat as the one in the photograph. It was a smudge, really, and disappeared after I went on a 20-mile bike ride and took off my helmet.

Ash Wednesday has a mysterious attraction. People who are not Catholic come. Although they cannot receive communion, they do get ashes, and they want them. St. John's Cathedral, downtown, moves big crowds through continuous services all day long. Monsignor Rob said that the ashes were "an outward sign of an inner intention for conversion." People understand that. They have a hunger for God, which rises to the surface on special days. They want to be better than they are. The Church's mission is to help all of us to be better, by conforming ourselves to Christ, through a process of constant conversion.

But why ashes? Why not some other pregnant symbol? There is no doubt a history behind the use of ashes. In the Old Testament, people repented in sack cloth and ashes. But perhaps the use of ashes ultimately comes down to what we are: "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust." Ash is a symbol of death. The cross is a symbol of Christ's victory over death. Put together, on Ash Wednesday, the cross and ash proclaim two stark alternatives. On Ash Wednesday, we choose to die to our sins, and we choose victory over death by means of the cross. We go through ashes to life.