Those of us who attended Catholic grammar school in the 1950’s and 60’s remember the challengng task of memorizing the questions and answers in The Baltimore Catechism. The definition of sacramentals stated: “Holy things or actions of which the Church makes use to obtain for us from God, through her intercession, spiritual and temporal favors.” Unfortunately, some of us have come to think of these holy things as talismans or items that bring us good fortune. There is no intrinsic power in a sacramental; the worth of it rests in that it represents the prayerful intercession of the Church.

This Wednesday, the Church observes the start of the Lenten season with the imposition of the ancient symbol of ashes on the foreheads of the faithful. The blessed ashes are among the most cherished sacramentals offered by the Church.

I have always been amazed by the number of people who wait in long lines to be marked with ashes on Ash Wednesday. My first experience of Ash Wednesday as a deacon came in 1990 at The Church of St. Agnes on East 43rd Street, Manhattan. Given its location near Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan, St. Agnes was an enormous center for the distribution of blessed ashes. The lines began to form when the church doors opened for the first Mass at 6:00 a.m. and continued right through until the end of homebound rush hour. Two lines of the faithful ran up the center aisle, out the front doors of the church on to 43rd Street, split east to Third Avenue and west to Lexington, and then north on each avenue and around the block.

The line seemed endless. By the end of the day, those of us who were distributing the blessed ashes experienced numbness in our legs and pain in our shoulders from reaching up to the thousands of foreheads we marked with the sign of the cross. The mood of the day was frenetic; the people coming to church seemed resolute to be marked. For some, it seemed as if they thought they would suffer damnation if they were not marked with ashes.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I rejoice on Ash Wednesday when so many faithful Catholics come to church with the desire to publicly demonstrate their faith and willingness to repent by receiving ashes; what troubles me are those few misguided souls who come only for the ashes, as if the ashes alone will in some way save them.

Again, there is no intrinsic power in the ashes; they are not magic dust. Whether we wear the ashes on our foreheads or sprinkled on the tops of our heads, the ashes should be for us — and the whole world — a sign, the sacramental, of our desire and willingness to repent: to turn our lives away from sin and to live our lives anchored in the Gospel by prayer, fasting, and receiving the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion frequently.

Repent and believe in the Gospel. Amen.