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12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 FEBRUARY 2020 OPINION THIS coming Wednesday many Christians will have a black cross smudged on their foreheads at a church or a chapel to receive the sign that tells the arrival of Ash Wednesday, the traditional start of the Christian season of Lent. As both a priest in the Epis- copal Church as well as a histo- rian of Christianity, I've come to appreciate many of the lit- urgies and practices that char- acterise the modern Church and have their roots in ancient traditions. The practice of don- ning ashes is one of them. Ashes in Bible stories In the Bible we are told that when the prophet Jonah pro- nounced God's wrath on the city of Nineveh for its "wick- edness," likely because of the worship of idols or "false" gods, the king, in an act of sincere penitence, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. God was moved by this gen- uine act of repentance and spared the city from destruc- tion. This story was meant to demonstrate that God is mer- ciful and heeds true remorse. This spiritual dimension of ashes is emphasized all through the Bible. In the Gospel of Mat- thew, Jesus deplores the lack of concern for the poor and mar- ginalised on the part of the es- tablishment of the day, as he passes through some towns. He called out the hypocrisy of religious leaders who taught righteousness on the one hand, but lived lives of luxury and wealth at the expense of the poor on the other. At one point Jesus condemned the re- ligious leaders as "whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth." When pronouncing these judgments, Jesus makes refer- ence to sackcloth and ashes as a form of penitence. How the practice evolved As early as the ninth century the Church started to use ash- es as a public demonstration of repentance for sins. It was only in 1091, however, that their use was ritualised. Pope Urban II decreed the use of ashes to mark the beginning of a 40-day season of Lent, a time when Christians imitate Christ's 40-day period of fast- ing. This period is said to have prepared Christ for his three- year ministry that would cul- minate in his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. With the Protestant Refor- mation of the 16th century, the use of ashes generally fell out of favour in non-Catholic denom- inations. However, it returned in the 19th century when many Protestant churches entered into intentional dialogue with each other and with the Catho- lic Church, a phenomenon that is called the "ecumenical movement." Today most "mainline" de- nominations, including Catho- lics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians and others allow for the "imposi- tion" (as called in Catholic and Episcopalian prayer books) of ashes during an Ash Wednes- day service. In some churches, the ashes are obtained by burn- ing the palms blessed in the previous year's Palm Sunday service – a time for Christians to remember Christ's trium- phal entry into Jerusalem days before he was crucified. The re- sultant ash, depending on local practice, might then be mixed with oil to make them adhere more easily to the forehead. Modern-day practice In recent years several churches have put a new spin on the traditional Ash Wednes- day service by providing what has been called "ashes to go." In this new take on an ancient practice, a pastor stands in a very public, often busy, place and offers the ashes to any pas- sers-by who wishes to receive them, whether or not the per- son is Christian. The pastors at St John's church in California provide 'Ashes to Go' for those who want to participate in the start of the Christian observance of Lent but are unable to attend a full church service. Stories abound of pastors providing "drive-through ash- es" in which the penitent does not even have to get out of the car. A website called "ashes to go" provides not only a list of global sites at which one can receive ashes in this way, but also has an FAQ section con- taining advice for churches contemplating such a service. For a supremely ironic twist on Ash Wednesday, one only has to observe that the Gos- pel reading appointed for the day is from Matthew, chapter 6. Here Jesus rails against re- ligious hypocrisy by criticising those whose religious piety is done mainly for show: "Whenever you fast, do not Michael Laver Why do Christians wear ashes on Ash Wednesday? Michael Laver Department Chair, Associate professor, Rochester Institute of Technology Christians bearing the sign of the cross on their forehead this Wednesday will be sharing a formal practice that dates back over a thousand years, and more than that – in a tradition that goes back much earlier Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna administering ashes on Ash Wednesday at a 2019 ceremony held at St John's Cathedral in Valletta