Ash Wednesday.

I recall growing up as a Baptist child, always seeing Ash Wednesday on the calendar, but never really understanding what it was, or what it was about. It was just one of those odd holidays that had no meaning to me, much like Boxing Day. I knew the name, but that was about the extent of it. As I became an adult, and started my journey to the Anglican faith in college, things like Advent, Lent, and Ash Wednesday began to take on a new meaning for me, and what depth of meaning they have come to hold in my life.

It is a strange thing, to one unfamilar with the tradition, that catholics around the world would get up early on a Wednesday to go to Mass, not eat all day, and have black soot smeared upon their foreheads in the shape of a cross. Growing up, I remebered in Sunday school hearing about the Old Testament rituals of donning ashes and sack cloths as a means of repentance when one's soul is grieved by one's sins. It always seemed so distant a tradition, until I came to understand and embrace it as an adult.

Penance is often looked on with suspicion and misunderstanding from those outside the faith. It might seem that catholics are obsessed with feeling guilty or balancing out sins with penance. In reality, penance has very little to do with trying to settle some karma score with God. Penance- and Lent, being the season of penance- is first and foremost about love. When I do wrong against someone I love, I want. for love's sake, to show them my sorrow, to show them how it grieves me that I've hurt them. This does not erase the wrong that I've done, but it does show my love for that person. It does not mean they will forgive me, and it may not even be necessary to do in order to obtain their forgiveness, but it does, nonetheless, demonstrate my love for them. How much more so, if we are willing to apoligize and try to make ammends to our earthly brethen, should we strive to do so for God? Penance is exactly that, saying "God, I love you, and I'm sorry that I have wronged you." Forgiveness then, is entirely up to Him. Luckily for us, his ability for mercy is ever greater than our own.

And with the imposition of ashes, there is more symbolism than even just penance. As I kneel before the priest, and he traces that cross upon my forehead, his fingers trace right over another cross: that which was traced in Holy water on the day of Baptism. That seal, invisble, yet ever present, become externaly visible for one day out of the year, reminding us that we bear His mark, that we belong to Him. And that seal bears with is the comfort and assurance of all the promises of Christ, imparted to us through his goodness. And that, my friends, is nothing short of Love. Amen.