Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is here and with it, the perennial question: “When can I get ashes?” Parish offices will receive numerous phone calls: “What time are you giving out ashes?” The questions betray a mindset; ashes are something we get. That mindset includes much more than ashes. It is still common to hear about people “receiving the sacraments”. But sacraments are not things. According to the Second Vatican Council, they are actions of whole church, “of Christ the priest and his Body the Church.” (SC #26) And if they are actions of the Church, then they are not private, personal yes, but not private. (SC #64)

This fall will bring the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council yet there are still deeply ingrained attitudes to be renewed.

I firmly believe that the key to Ash Wednesday and to Lent is to be found in the celebration of the Easter Vigil, a celebration most American Catholics have never participated in.

One of the important acts of the Council was to restore the catechumenate. For centuries, Lent and Easter was celebrated without this essential element, Christian initiation. Consequently, Lent became privatized, a time for personal acts of penance, unconnected to baptism.

Baptism became a private, family affair that was followed by catechesis. With the restoration of the catechumenate, baptism again became a process of formation in Christian discipleship leading to initiation into the paschal mystery of Christ. The Easter Vigil was restored as the mystery of Christ dying and rising taking hold of the lives of new disciples. Easter was not simply a remembering of what had happened, but a re-member-ing of the Body of Christ here and now.

On the first Sunday of Lent, in cathedral churches throughout the Catholic world, bishop now summon catechumens to a period of final, intensive preparation for their initiation into the Body of Christ.

First, however, that body needs to be called to purification, to renewed discipleship. So the preceding Wednesday, Christians gather and hear the call of the prophet, Joel:

Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God..
Blow the trumpet in Zion!
Proclaim a fast, call an assembly;
Gather the people, notify the congregation.

Lent is not simply about “doing some acts of penance.” It is a time of personal and corporate renewal in discipleship in preparation to welcome new members into the Body of Christ.

The question at the end of Lent is not “How consistent was what did I do (or give up) for Lent?” but “Have I been part of the renewal of my church community?” Lent culminates both in the celebration of Christian initiation at the Easter Vigil and in my personal renewal of baptism at the Vigil or on Easter Sunday.