Ashes to Go? A Thought Experiment

An earlier version of the following article ran on Covenant on March 5, 2019. It has been edited and shortened by the author.

A practice that has gained momentum in recent years is to offer Ashes to Go at busy locations like transit stations and street corners (for example, see here). This might be as limited as imposing ashes in the sign of a cross on a person’s forehead with the liturgical sentence, Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Or it could include a brief adapted rite drawn from the proper liturgy for Ash Wednesday from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (for the full text of the rite, see Word.doc and .pdf).

What do we make of this development? Is this an example of cheap grace that is more like crosses worn as a fashion statement? Or is it an inspired example of creative evangelism?

After some considerable thought, I have come to think that this can be a useful evangelistic tool, depending on how it is presented and administered. But it is important that we work through the issues that are stake in taking a rite such as this one to the streets.

To answer this question well, we need to be clear about what the Ash Wednesday rite is before we figure out how it might be adapted.

What Is It?

The short answer is that it is a unique, singular construction, as are several of the Proper Liturgies for Special Days in the American prayer book. The use of ashes comes from an early practice of public penance for notorious sins, as Marion Hatchett explains:

The penitents were placed under discipline on this Wednesday, admonished and prayed for. They received the laying on of hands and then were dismissed from the church prior to the Eucharist. The imposition of ashes and the use of the seven penitential psalms (Pss. 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143) were added to the rite of dismissal in the ninth century, and the day came to be known as Ash Wednesday. (Commentary on the American Prayer Book, p. 218)

By the 11th century, public penance had all but disappeared, at least in parish churches. “But the old texts continued in use and Lent was given a new dimension as a time in which all received ashes and underwent penance” (Hatchett, p. 219). As was normally the case when an additional rite was added to the Mass, the rite was appended to the beginning of the liturgy. In the current prayer book, it is placed after the sermon.

The current Ash Wednesday rite in the American prayer book reflects this Western history and the variations that marked this rite in the Sarum usage in pre-medieval England. The venerable collect is Cranmer’s composition but draws from the blessing of ashes and the introit for this day in the Sarum and Tridentine missals. The address to the people that follows the sermon (usually beginning with words like “Dear friends in Christ”) is a relatively rare type of construction in the American prayer book.[1]

The rite’s exhortation-like address (1979 BCP, pp. 264-65) contextualizes the ritual actions that follow:

• This practice is based in an ancient practice of preparing to celebrate the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection
• Penitence and fasting are the normative expressions of such preparation
• Another context of Lent is preparation for Holy Baptism, which would be marked by catechesis and penitence
• A third context is public penance, by which “the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith” (p. 265).
• After the explanation, the gathered people are charged to observe a holy Lent in the following ways: self-examination and repentance, prayer, fasting, self-denial, reading, meditating on God’s holy Word.
• Finally, the use of ashes is given a particular meaning — “to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer” — after which ashes are imposed.

The context is this: in light of, and in preparation for, the celebration of the Paschal Mystery, ashes are imposed and accompanied by the words that God said to Adam and Eve in the wake of their disastrous sin (Gen. 3:19; see also Gen. 2:7, Eccl. 3:20). They are a means to enter more fully into the Lenten season in which the Church calls us to undertake special acts of discipline and self-denial to open ourselves to the work of God.

Ashes gather up a theme that runs through the whole sweep of salvation history: when judgment was announced on Sodom, and Abram sought to intercede on the city’s behalf, he said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27). Dust was an image for wayward Israel (Num. 23:10). The object of Israel’s sin, the golden calf, was ground into dust, mixed into the water, and Israel was made to drink it as a sort of anti-sacrament (a similar scene is in 2 Kgs. 23:6).

Ashes are a sign of repentance at major junctions: (Josh. 7:6; Job 2:12, 16:15; Lam. 2:10; Ezek. 27:30; Rev. 18:19). And in the New Testament, dust is the definitive image to distinguish Adam from Christ in 1 Corinthians 15 (as we read last week in the Office).

Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed. (1 Cor. 15:45-51)

Following the imposition of ashes, those who have received them kneel and pray the one penitential psalm that remains in our rite, Psalm 51, followed by a Litany of Penitence and the Peace.

The use of ashes and their imposition is what Catholic theologians call a sacramental: “sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments” and that “signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church.” Their purpose is to dispose the recipients or users “to receive the chief end of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy” (Sacrosanctum concilium 70; Catechism of the Catholic Church 1667). The way ashes function in the 1979 prayer book aligns with the character of a sacramental. The prayer book does not use this language, but there are other examples that fit into this category (palms on Palm Sunday; the wooden cross to be venerated on Good Friday; the new fire and the Paschal Candle at the Easter Vigil; wedding rings at a marriage).

The Catechism in the 1979 prayer book distinguishes between “the two great Sacraments of the Gospel,” baptism and the Eucharist (1979 BCP, p. 858), and “other sacramental rites”: “confirmation, ordination, holy matrimony, reconciliation of a penitent, and unction” (p. 860), and the latter should not be confused with the category of sacramentals. While it is normative for a bishop or priest to officiate at this rite and impose ashes, the rubric that indicates that a deacon or lay reader may lead the rite in the absence of a priest suggests that the same principle should be observed if parts of the rite are used elsewhere.

What are the Contexts in which the Imposition of Ashes is Fitting?

Thus, the principal question regarding Ashes to Go is this: To what extent is the spiritual usefulness of ashes dependent on context? The only place to really go for an answer is the rite.

The history I outlined in the first section make it quite clear, I think, that the particular ritual act of administering ashes can mean little if it is completely abstracted from its wider ritual context. The sentence to be used as the ashes are applied — “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” — only speaks to one of multiple pieces that give the rite meaning (i.e., the Christian gospel; preparation for the ritual entrance into the Paschal Mystery in Holy Week; the reality of sin and the confession of particular sin; the season of Lent as a period of self-examination, repentance, and mortification).

The prayer book rite never directs how or where the ashes are imposed or on what part of the body. There are at least two traditions in the west. The practice with which most are familiar is to impose them in the form of a cross upon one’s forehead. One intention of this method is to connect the action to the signing of the forehead with the cross after baptism. In other words, the form of mortification and a “right beginning” to Lent presumes that the journey began earlier, at baptism, which provides a theological and anthropological context for the action. We who are people of dust, whose bodies will return to the dust, have been made alive in Christ (1 Cor. 15:22) and thus will “certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5).

The one is that they are sprinkled on top of the head in the form of a cross (as can be seen in the image at the top). And while this is less well-known, it actually seems to be in deeper accord with the whole of the rite, especially the Gospel text, which specifically directs against public acts of piety: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them,” Jesus teaches us, “for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” The latter approach allows the faithful to keep the sign of mortality and penance on their bodies but hidden to everyone else.

I said earlier that the imposition is ashes is properly categorized as a sacramental. Just as sacraments can be received to no effect, so can sacramentals.

In my judgment, the ascetical usefulness of a rite like that of Ash Wednesday depends on a combination of the context in which it is enacted and the formation of the one receiving it. But we should also remember that there are multiple contexts in which ashes may be received. For the Christian who is, for whatever reason, prevented from coming to church on Ash Wednesday for the normal liturgy, a version of Ashes to Go may be a way to enter fully into the ritual action, despite its brevity. This is analogous to taking the Blessed Sacrament to those who are ill or prevented from participating in the Eucharist and administering it in a brief ritual form. But the less formation in the Christian faith one has, the less one has a context in which to make sense of a relatively rare ritual like the imposition of ashes and thus actively engage it.

To simply apply ashes to a person’s forehead with the sentence and nothing more is to strain the ritual to its breaking point. Rituals need a shared context if they are to do their work.

How Ashes Might be Imposed Outside of a Church?

Here’s my advice if you want to consider an imposition of ashes beyond the normal liturgical setting in a church.

The central principal, I think, is this: If this is going to be an effective tool for evangelism, the heart of the gospel that is disclosed in the prayer book’s liturgy for Ash Wednesday must speak as clearly as possible. To the extent that the context of the Gospel is obscured – that God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself through his death and resurrection – the rite is being misused and degraded.

I encourage you to resist the urge is mix the rite of Ash Wednesday with other goals, political or otherwise (the most common of these is glitter). As my colleague, Ruth Meyers, explains, the imposition of ashes is “an ancient symbol of repentance, of regret … our mortality,” “To try to combine that symbol with glitter, which seems to be about a celebration and an affirmation of a particular group of people, seems to confuse the symbols in a way that doesn’t allow either symbol to work.”

Several of the resources on AshestoGo.org help to contextualize the ritual action by creating a rite of variable length based on the prayer book. I have drawn together some of the materials there into a single document and edited them to conform more closely to the prayer book liturgy and included additional prayer book collects that one might include in a handout (see below). Also included are brief forms of Laying on of Hands for Healing and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This encounter may prompt a person to desire one or both of these rites, and priests should be actively prepared to provide this kind of pastoral care.

It’s also important to take a few steps back and think about the presentation of the ritual seeks to draw people into the fellowship of the Church, and particularly, your church. Make sure the name of your church is clear on your sign or handout. Use as full a rite as possible and let the prayer book’s language have its place. Ask people if you can pray for them. Be attentive to those who might benefit from laying on of hands or whose consciences are troubled and need the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Have a clear, succinct, and informative handout that explains what you’re doing, provides ways for people to go deeper: ways to connect at your parish, of course (not just service times, but also opportunities to serve the community); links to daily Bible reading; ways to help people pray the daily office, such as the Venite app from Forward Movement or Derek Olson’s St. Bede’s Breviary).

Footnotes

[1] The other places such a construction are found are the longer biddings to confession the Offices (1979 BCP, pp. 41, 62, 79, 116) and the Eucharist; the optional Exhortation to Holy Communion (pp. 316-17); the opening of the Easter Vigil (which, at two sentences, is quite short; p. 285) and its bidding to the renewal of vows (p. 292); the famous address that begins the Marriage rite (p. 423); the brief bidding that introduces the Litany at the Time of Death (p. 465); and the brief opening address at the Dedication and Consecration of a Church (p. 567). To this we could add the charge to the ordinands in the three ordination rites (pp. 517, 531, 543), though they are addressed only to the ordinand but in the presence of the gathered congregation. Outside of the biddings to confession, all the other examples are occasional or episodic: they don’t mark regular, normative rites for public worship.

And a Word doc version.

Matthew S.C. Olver

The Rev. Matthew S.C. Olver, Ph.D., is the Executive Director and Publisher of the Living Church Foundation, Senior Lecturer in Liturgics at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, and a scholar of early Christian liturgy.