Ash Wednesday – 2019

Photo by Michael Kearney

Ash Wednesday this year was a bit unusual for me on several accounts. The most obvious one is that it is my first one in “retirement”, so I actually had time to reflect on its meaning. This year, Ash Wednesday occurred during Delbarton’s spring break, so there was no communal Ash Wednesday service with the school. This meant that, for the monastic community, ashes would first be distributed during the daily conventual Mass at 5:00 p.m. It seemed odd to go the whole day without receiving ashes. The final thing that set this Ash Wednesday apart was my needing to go to the wake of a high school classmate’s mother. The family was holding the wake nearby from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m. Normally I would have gone right at 4:00 so that I could be back for Mass at 5, but because I suspected that some friends from high school would be there, I decided to wait and go after Mass.

The celebrant of our daily Mass is fond of imposing ashes in a serious way, so I had a very healthy smudge of soot on my forehead as I got in the car to head to the funeral home. However, this being a good Irish Catholic family, many of those at the wake also had ashes and I did not feel self-conscious in my Roman collar and blackened forehead. As I suspected, there were two fellow classmates in attendance. I caught up with them after greeting the family. One was leaving shortly to drive to Philadelphia to await the arrival of a grandchild. We chatted briefly and then he left. My other classmate mentioned that a few others had already been and were at a local establishment. Did I want to go with him to say hello. I did, but hesitated at the thought of going into a bar in Roman collar on Ash Wednesday. I wanted to see my friends, though; so, I agreed and went.

Apparently there's precedent

Walking into the bar did feel odd. Soon, however, we were all sitting together laughing and swapping old war stories. I ordered a beer but declined the offer of food. I was skating close to the edge, but I wasn’t prepared to break the fast. I was reminded of an article that another monk had shared with me about a community of monks in Bavaria, who, in the 16^th century, observed a so-called “beer fast”. They forwent solid food for the period of Lent and sustained themselves by drinking only a fortified beer. I guess if it was good enough for them, I should be OK. Eventually I needed the men’s room and as I was returning to the table, a young man passed me and said, “Happy Lent, Father!” “Thanks”, I replied thinking to myself, “I don’t think anyone has ever wished me a happy Lent before.” And why not? For us Christians, this should be a joyous time of preparation for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. But I believe that I, like most Christians I know, approach Lent with a kind of grim resolve. I understand and accept the worth of the Lenten discipline, but it’s hardly an occasion for joy.

Photo by Martin Jernberg

As a part of my personal Lenten discipline, I subscribed to an online service that would deliver a Lenten meditation to my inbox each day during Lent. The one for Ash Wednesday came back to me as I drove home from the bar with the greeting of “Happy Lent, Father!” still playing over and over in my head. The writer of the meditation reflected on the Gospel text for Ash Wednesday observing, “the Gospel itself shifts gears into something resembling comic relief or satire, where we are chided into remembering that our actions must be focused on inward change rather than public ostentation. On the one day that our faces are liturgically and publicly smeared with ashes, we are then told to wash our faces so no one will know we are fasting. On the one day when so many people come to public services without any church obligation to do so, we are told not to pray in public where others can see us.” I was struggling with the obvious contradiction between what the Gospel instructs and the current practice of the Church. I was probably still wondering if I had given scandal by being in a bar on Ash Wednesday. Irish Catholic guilt – you never outgrow it!

I’d like to think that God gave me an answer to my doubts two days later when I opened the meditation for the Friday after Lent. On that day, the author was tackling the big question of fasting or feasting. The same question had been posed to Jesus by the disciples of John the Baptists. Jesus’ response was that the wedding guests (us) could not fast while the bridegroom (Jesus) was still with them. Now, Jesus does go on to say that the day will come when the bridegroom is taken away and then they will fast. The Church has always understood fasting as something that we do as a part of the “not yet” nature of our Christian existence. We believe that we have Christ’s abiding presence with us now, but because of the reality of sin, we do not fully experience that presence. Fasting is a way of addressing the reality of sin in our lives by making us more aware of the pull of our earthly nature on us.

Returning to the original question, however, we see that Jesus’ response to the question of fasting is quite remarkable. Richard Rohr says this, Jesus uses the occasion when the disciples of John question him about not fasting, and instead of being either didactic or defensive, he actually changes the subject and utterly reframes the question—as he often does. In fact, he introduces two lovely new words into the vocabulary, “wedding guests” and “bridegroom.” How amazing is that? It shows us that he is far from criticizing, justifying, defending, or imposing any discipline of fasting.

In fact, he is revealing here his most common metaphor for eternal life or the hereafter. And that metaphor is again and again a wedding banquet—at which he himself is God’s gracious host or “groom” and we are the marriage partner. It is daring language, but a worldview that he seems to be entirely comfortable with.

I'm the one with the smudge

So, if the Lord himself was okay with feasting instead of fasting, maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about being in a bar with friends on Ash Wednesday.

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Richard Rohr, OFM; Ash Wednesday;  God For Us; March 6, 2019;  Paraclete Press;

Richard Rohr, OFM; Friday after Ash Wednesday;  God For Us; March 8, 2019;  Paraclete Press