Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Sunday Telegraph Column 2005 > Article	Printable Version

Lent 2005

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
13 February 2005

Catholics have an unusual ceremony for the start of Lent, the forty day period of preparation for Easter, when we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, about the year 30A.D. in Jerusalem.

Big crowds of worshippers attend all our churches on Ash Wednesday, although attendance is not obligatory. One of the highlights of this occasion is the “distribution of ashes”.

Many come forward to have the sign of the cross marked on their foreheads in ash. An older practice was to sprinkle the ashes in the form of a cross in the hair, although for understandable reasons this is no longer favoured.

As the ashes are received the priest says a short formula to remind believers of their mortality and their need for God’s forgiveness. I use the traditional formula “Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return”, but priests can also use a reminder that we must repent and believe the gospel.

The ashes are produced by burning the palms used in the procession on Palm Sunday of the previous Easter, when we recall Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem some days before his execution. They are blessed during the Mass before they are distributed and are received as a sign and spiritual help to greater openness to God.

The Church calls signs and spiritual helps like the ashes “sacramentals”. Like using holy water in the fonts at church entrances to bless themselves, everyone can come to receive the ashes to acknowledge their faith, the need to repent and the fact that we must die.

Children particularly enjoy receiving the ashes and I suppose they still compete, as some of us used to, about whose forehead is the blackest. Mothers too like even their babes in arms to be blessed with the ashes although young children cannot commit serious sin (they can be bold and misbehave).

Receiving the ashes is very different however from receiving communion. There is a greater solemnity in receiving communion because it requires faith in the real presence of Christ. This is not something that comes easily.

Reflecting on the shortness of life or our weaknesses and failures is enough to enable anyone to receive the ashes. But much more than this relatively simple thought is required to approach communion with the faith that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are really the body and blood of Jesus. Membership of the Church is essential.

This is why children are only allowed to receive communion when they are able to begin understanding this mystery and to be taught about it. It is also why non-Catholics are not invited to receive communion, and why people whose lives are in serious disorder (sin) for any reason should not come to communion.

The ashes mark the start of a time of spiritual spring cleaning, and communion sustains repentant believers in the hard work this entails.