ASH WEDNESDAY
(February 14)
“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2: 12-13)
Yes, I do know that it is “not” Ash Wednesday, or the beginning of Lent, for us Orthodox Christians today. Nonetheless, as I observe Latin Christians walking about in the streets today, here in Vienna, with dark marks on their foreheads, I’m beginning to feel inspired for Lent, which for us is still a month away. The ashes, from which Latin Christians get their marks on their foreheads today, are from their burnt Palm-Sunday branches of the previous year, reminding them (and me, as it happens) of our readiness to walk the cross-carrying journey up until and through our Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem (on Palm Sunday), and His ensuing Passion or suffering during Great Week (or “Strastnaya Nedelya” in Slavonic).
Today let me feel inspired, rather than alienated, by the tradition of other Christians (that is, of “Ash Wednesday”), as I begin to anticipate Lent. Let me begin to return to the Lord “with all my heart,” in heartfelt prayer, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”
