I’m struck by the crowd every year when I enter my parish sanctuary on Ash Wednesday. Whether I’ve chosen to attend the morning mass on my way to work or the evening service after I’ve tucked my children into their beds, the pews are full. I see all the familiar faces from Sunday mass, and I see new ones as well – extended family members of the regulars, the “Christmas and Easter Catholics,” and also individuals, I suspect, who saw ashes on the foreheads of their friends and coworkers throughout the day and decided to step in.

Ash Wednesday, I’m reminded year after year, resonates. For some reason, individuals who don’t regularly practice their faith choose to return to the church on this solemn Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. As I watch the faces around me, I know that attendance is more than a gesture or an obligation (and indeed, Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation). I see how the Scripture readings, the music, the prayers and the rituals move people. I hear the heavy sighs; I notice the teary eyes.

And while I can’t know why this day speaks to others, I do know – as I join in the sighs and feel tears well up in my eyes – why it speaks to me. 

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, the 40 day season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that ends at sundown on Holy Thursday, when Triduum – the summit of the Liturgical Year – begins. Lent, as a whole, is a period of preparation to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection on Easter. Through the practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, we seek inner conversation and prepare our hearts and minds to receive the gifts of Easter. 

The liturgy of Ash Wednesday, and the ritual of smudging ashes on our foreheads in particular, speak to the themes of repentance, abstinence, and spiritual renewal that are at the heart of Lent. The tradition of marking oneself with ashes as a sign of repentance has roots in the Old Testament, where stories tell us that wearing ashes was a common sign of demonstrating one’s humility before God. When we receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, we join countless others throughout history and the present moment in acknowledging our sins before God and consciously turning ourselves back to God.

But ashes are more than a symbol. They are literally dust, and as such, a tangible reminder of what we, too, will soon become. When ashes are pressed on our foreheads by the priest or other minister, he or she will utter “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” While I can’t speak for others, I know that for me, it is precisely this sobering message that draws me to Ash Wednesday. 

Ashes remind me that life is short. I am dust. Right now, breath and blood flow through me, and I have been given the precious gift of life, but before long – a nanosecond, relatively, in the course of all history – I will be dust again. Awareness of the fleeting nature of time reminds me to fully embrace what I have right here, right now. I hug my husband tighter when I return home after Ash Wednesday mass, and tiptoe in to kiss the foreheads of my sleeping children.

Ashes also remind me of my sins, my weaknesses, my imperfections. My parish typically sings the song Ashes by Tom Conroy as the congregation receives their forehead markings, and the lyrics never fail to help me look at my life honestly. “We offer you our failures, we offer you attempts, the gifts not fully given, the dreams not fully dreamt.” We must notice our sins before we can repent from them, and ashes help me to do this. This song, in particular, reminds me that sin -- turning our backs towards God and our fellow humans -- extends beyond lying, cheating, stealing. It includes stinginess of resources and of spirit, lackluster care in our work at home and our places of employment, the refusal to engage with neighbors and strangers. I say this not to berate myself or others, but simply to remember and notice the ways I fall short... and therefore, the ways I can turn back.

Most importantly, ashes turn me back to Jesus. The other phrase uttered as ashes are bestowed is “Repent and believe the Gospel.” Ash Wednesday, in other words, is about more than recognizing our human limitations, our nature as dust. Ashes turn us not just away from sin (that’s the “repent” part), but towards God (that’s the “believe the Gospel” part). Ashes tell us that we are dust, but that life can grow from dust, as a flower blooms from the dirt. However, that flower must receive nutrients from the sun and dirt, and we, too, must receive nutrients in order to grow. We receive this nourishment through Scripture and prayer, and the season of Lent invites us to pay particular attention to these practices.