DeForeest Shares His Ashes

By Sean M. Wright

Youngsters astonish parents with unexpected occasions of instantaneous affection. Their compassionate little hearts eagerly prompt them to help Mom or Dad. And these wonderfully impulsive incidents become cherished memories.

I recall Ash Wednesday, 1995. I phoned my mom to let her know that my office was closing early and I’d be able to pick up DeForeest, my then five-year-old son. He attended a kindergarten class at Blessed Sacrament School in Hollywood, the same school I’d attended 39 years before.

Mom sighed but acquiesced. She was nearing 74 and, while it was an imposition to ask her to help with the afternoon carpool, it was one she truly enjoyed. DeForeest was her only grandchild and a source of great joy.

With other parents, I entered the parking lot and awaited the dismissal bell inside our white 1980 Chrysler LeBaron with its big, comfortable hatch in the rear.

DeForeest and I loved that hatch. To celebrate his birthday, we’d drive to the desert to escape Hollywood’s light pollution. Lounging in our hatch with a bucket of chicken, we’d gaze at the celestial fireworks of the annual Perseid meteor shower.

I had a small book handy, one of a dandy series comprising the Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism, consisting 150 titles published by Hawthorn Books between 1958-1971. This particular volume detailed ecclesiastical feasts and seasons. I turned to the section about Lent and Ash Wednesday.

Several biblical instances detail strewing one’s head with ashes, often in company with donning sackcloth, as personal expressions of sorrow and repentance, such as Mordecai grieving over the decree that all Jews inhabiting the Persian Empire were to be exterminated (Est 4:1).

Job is described as sitting amid “the dust and ashes” repenting of his misconceptions about God’s justice (Jb 42:6). When Jonah preached, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed!” the king proclaimed a citywide fast then dressed himself in sackcloth, a penitent who sat in a pile of ashes (Jon 3:4-6).

Hearkening back to Jonah and Nineveh, Jesus pronounced sentence on the lakeside towns of Galilee for their ingratitude: “Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they would have long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes” (Mt 11:21).

The early Church continued the practice; Tertullian (c. 160-220), that grim Roman priest and theologian, demanded penitents to “live without joy in the roughness of sackcloth and the squalor of ashes.”

Eusebius, the Church historian of the Constantinian era, recounts how an apostate named Natalis, like the prodigal son of Jesus’ parable, returned to Rome sorrowing, wearing sackcloth, his head sprinkled with ashes, begging forgiveness and reconciliation from Pope Zephyrinus.

At that time, following public confession of sins, the bishop sprinkled ashes onto the heads of penitents. On Sundays, attired in sackcloth, they sat in front of a church. Excluded from attending Mass, they begged prayers from their brothers and sisters entering divine service.

Penitents were obliged to remain separated from the consolation of the sacraments until they were reconciled to the Church, usually on Holy Thursday. Back then Catholicism was by no means a religion for mollycoddles or the faint of heart.  

After private confession became the norm during the 8th-10th centuries, it became customary for all members of the congregation to appear at Mass during Lent, having scattered ashes on their heads.

A large, opaque veil symbolizing the sackcloth was raised in front of the sanctuary to obscure viewing the liturgy, in memory of when penitents were not allowed to participate in the sacred liturgy. This veiling became the origin of shrouding crucifixes and statues in violet, the liturgical color of sorrow and penitence. 

Going back to the 8th century, the first day of Lent bore the name “Dies Cinerum” (Day of Ashes) in the Roman Missal. Encyclopaedia Britannica explains:

In the early Christian church, the length of the Lenten celebration varied, but eventually it began six weeks (42 days) before Easter. This provided only 36 days of fasting (excluding Sundays). In the 7th century, four days were added before the first Sunday in Lent in order to establish 40 fasting days, in imitation of Jesus Christ’s fast in the desert.

In Western Christianity, Ash Wednesday occurs between February 4 and March 11, depending on the date of Easter. The liturgy reminds Catholics of human mortality and reconciliation with the Almighty. “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation” (Ps 51:14).

I think I first became aware of living in a post-Christian culture on Ash Wednesday in 2009. On more than one local TV channel, news anchors paused to wonder aloud at the smudge on the forehead of Joe Biden, the new Catholic Vice President. None could explain why it remained untouched throughout the day.

Yet there are a great many Catholics who, while paradoxically refusing to attend Sunday Mass, create a veritable tidal wave of humanity in their desire to be marked by sacramental ashes. The numbers cause many a parish to schedule special liturgies throughout the day, even though Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation.

Indeed, my parish rates a special detail of the Los Angeles County sheriffs to keep traffic flowing on Ash Wednesday. Similar situations occur at many parishes across the nation.

After blessing ashes and sprinkling them with holy water a priest imposes the ashes with his thumb on the foreheads of the faithful with the Sign of the Cross. When I was younger the priest, in Latin or English, told each person, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris” (“Remember, man thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return”). Today, one is more likely to hear, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

The school bell rang at last and the children streamed out, all their foreheads marked with ashes. I waved and DeForeest trotted over to where I was parked. Scooping him up we hugged each other.

“Where are your ashes, Papa?” he asked with a note of dismay. I explained that, having dropped him off at school that morning, I had no time to go to Mass before going to work.

Still in my arms, he considered the situation for a moment before leaning forward to press his forehead against mine. He pulled back and smiled.

“Now you have ashes too,” and he hugged me again. I set him down to clamber onto the front seat and lock the seatbelt around him.

Walking around the car to my door, I reflected on this and other examples of my child’s desire to show how much he loved my wife and me. I thanked God for this loving, considerate son. Love is all-consuming in children. How can anyone want to abort our children, or allow them to suffer and die when all they want is to love their parents and families?

Let us pray during this Lent that hardened hearts be converted and may be moved to protect our children and join Jesus our Lord in loving them all.

(Sean M. Wright, award-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated writer, is a Master Catechist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Santa Clarita, California. He welcomes comments sent him at Locksley69@aol.com.)