Haiti 24

As we enter the Lenten season, my colleague Luke Fodor has shared some thoughts on Ash Wednesday and what it means to be “marked” as followers of Jesus:

Today many of us will go to church and experience that familiar annual ritual of receiving an ashen cross marked on our foreheads. Since the 9th century, the Church has commenced the holy season of Lent with the imposition of ashes, as a reminder that we “are dust and to dust we shall return.” This ritual is the highlight of the service. On the streets of Manhattan, like in other cities across the country, many do not even have to darken the door of a church to receive ashes, as priests stand ready to mark passersby.

Last year, the terror of this simple penitential service shook me as I took my eight-month-old son forward to receive ashes on his forehead. Seeing the ash on his head brought me out of any isolated, individual or maudlin thoughts about my own mortality or my own sin. Seeing the ash on his soft skin caused something to crumble inside of me. Even the newly born—so pure and so innocent—are marked for death.

This year, as I prepare to again enter into the terror of Ash Wednesday, my thoughts are with our Haitian brothers and sisters. It seems their whole existence is marked with dust. Today, as our Haitian brothers and sisters receive that mark on their heads, how can they not remember the dust in their mouths left by the quake that has turned their lives upside down? How can they not remember their loved ones and their homes that are now nothing but dust and rubble? And yet, we have all seen news footage—the inexplicable singing of hymns and banding together as a community—that shows the resilient spirit of the Haitian people.

Yes, on this Ash Wednesday as we collectively receive ashes, let us all remember that we are marked for death. That simple ashen cross reminds us of our mortality—but it also speaks of hope. It is a reminder of another cross, one marked in oil, that once adorned our head at our baptisms. And though that oil has long ago soaked into our skin or been wiped away, it has indelibly marked us. In dying with Christ, we live again. We live again, and not for ourselves, but for others. We have taken a covenant at our baptism “to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.”

As we see ashen foreheads, turbaned foreheads or blank foreheads all around us, how can we as followers of the Anointed One love them? We are marked for death and we are marked for a life of selfless service. On this Ash Wednesday, I echo that sacred invitation to a Holy Lent. I invite you to meditate on this simple question: How can you, like our Lord Jesus, be a person marked for others?