Today marks the beginning of the forty-day Christian liturgical season known as Lent, a time of reflection, contemplation, and perhaps even sacrifice in preparation for the coming of the Holy Week that culminates in the celebration of Christ's Easter resurrection. Throughout the world on Wednesday, Christians from across denominations and traditions will make themselves known through the imposition of ashes in the shape of a cross on their foreheads, small but conspicuous statements about their spiritual identities and, I suspect, their most pressing hopes.
We know from Tolkien that not all who wander are lost. The inverse, of course, is also true. Not all who find themselves moved to religious ritual are finished seeking. Most aren't, even as many of us wander in and through various religious orbits, spiritual practices, and times of communion and estrangement from God and from each other. Those who will bear the mark of Christ's cross on Ash Wednesday do so for different, even disparate reasons. Some will wear it as a proud (and I don't mean prideful) badge, a faithful, even kerygmatic public statement. Some receive the ashes and the Wednesday blessing because of the long pull of tradition. Others are compelled to it by a desire for that same pull and the hope that God might meet us in it. Not all, and perhaps not even many, who wander are lost. Not all who wear ashes are cradle Christians or Christian converts. Not all who take pause on Ash Wednesday will go on to observe a Christian Lent. Not all who hope for Easter's promise necessarily believe it. Not all who want to feel able. But I do believe, somehow, that all who seek God will find.
I've never been much of an Ash-wearer, but I became one last year when confronted with the thousands-fold witness of marked heads on the subway. It was not so much the numbers themselves, but the odd occurrences: every other person in the long corridors beneath Time Square, every fourth or fifth on the 3, a small group walking towards me as I surfaced to street level. If a sacrament is, as theologians are fond of saying, a visible sign of an invisible truth, these pilgrims were sacraments for me. Their willingness to be marked as believers or seekers, and, in either case, people needing something, made me willing, too. Going up the wrong flight of stairs at 14th Street Station and hitting the street at the Church of the Village meant I was greeted with a sign proclaiming Imposition. So then there I was, and there, it seemed, was God. I received ashes and a blessing, a charge to repent, believe, and live. In short, I was moved, felt something, lost my bearings. I didn't know which way to walk when I came back out to the street. I believe I had a profound, even mystical experience, not because I succumbed to a ritual I'd never valued, but because I believe God uses what God can to meet us where we are. For me, a provisional-at-best Christian, a seminary grad burned out on church and religion, it was the totally new experience of ashes, of anointing prayer and blessing. It was whatever God said to my spirit while the bishop spoke to me.
Over the past year, I've found myself much more interested in the mystical Christian traditions than ever before, and needing them. I've felt more at home around ritual and process so long as I approach them from humility and from the recognition that God is always bigger than the things we do and that when God meets us in those things, it's because God is God, not because we've done religious work God deems cosmically essential. But it's also true that our drive to meet God in places carved out by tradition echos something cosmically essential: an understanding that we want and need the mystical, the holy; a hope that God will meet us wherever it is we seek to find.
This Ash Wednesday, I am reminded that the power of Christian ritual has absolutely nothing to do with it being set down by patriarchs with apostolic authority or some other contrived historiography that super-values the existential (and perhaps compulsive) needs of long-dead saints. For me, our rituals, like our stories, are opportunities to embrace the basic Christian claim: the in-breaking of God at every turn, the furious longing on God's part for time and eternity with us.
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Sister Joan Chittister, OSB: Readings for Holy Week
Ash Wednesday - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ash Wednesday - Easter / Lent - Catholic Online
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I think of religion like I think of classic rules for art. It's not what's given or passed down to you that matters as much as what you do with it..if you use the pieces to help foster experiences that are life-giving for you and for others. I think it's rational to be in interested in that. At any rate, it's human.
I grew up catholic and war really only into the whole "Love your neighbor" philosophy. I left all of the other Jesus and "We are all sinners" garbage aside, even as a little kid. I realized when I was very young that you can lover your neighbor without Jesus because it really is a universal truth. That's when I realized, "Oh my god, JESUS DOESN'T EXIST". Greatest thing that could ever have happened to me. Now that doesn't mean I don't believe in god, I just don't know and I don't feel it's important one way or the other. My doubt or certainty is not worth behaving as intolerant as most religious people I know. I really haven't gotten that vibe from the atheists as your article claims though.
So I follow 3 commandments:
1. Do not screw anybody over.
2. Be able to look at yourself in the mirror.
3. Help people in need as much as humanly possible. But if you just don't feel like it that day, it's ok, just make sure you NEVER break numbers 1 and 2.
If you do, you may want to reconsider how progressive you really are. best wishes.
Ouch. Id like to say somethng in my defense. According to the bible (which many christians dont read these days) Jesus didnt like organized religion, so the christians are doing something Jesus didnt like by making a religion out of him! also the bible said not to judge others, and Ive seen most christians judge others including liberals. Saying Im not progressive because my opinions disagree with yours is verbose and inflammatory.
I am going to assume something: I assume you agree with me that making blanket statements about a system that 1) is far from monolithic..not even a system, really, and 2) tied to the beliefs and practices of billions of people is just not a progressive stance. Hence my suggestion that if you really are comfortable making those kinds of statements or assumptions, you really should reconsider. I didn't say you weren't progressive. I said if you're content making blanket statements about Christian faith based on what you've "heard some Christians saying lately," then you might want to think about how progressive you are. Never once did I say you weren't progressive. I've said nothing inflammatory.
I agree that Jesus didn't like organized religion. My points above are about recognizing that religion at it's best is provisional, and that even so, there are some meaningful experiences to be had in the context of such a realized provisionality.
best wishes wasn't meant sarcastically, though I could have spaced it more prudently.
so, sincere best wishes.
have the monopoly on tradition. After studying world religion, I have discovered that Hindusim predates all the monotheistic faiths, and they are not monotheistic.
ANother bold claim is that christians are spiritual. Ive been hearing this one a lot, and usually from the less savory members of the religion.
Many christians assume, rather falsely, that Easter is theirs alone, Easter did not originate from Judaism, because Jews do not celebrate the resurrection of christ. Instead, it was stolen from the Pagans, who origially used it to celebrate spring with the goddess Astarte or ishtar.
A wise man once said, if you stop changing you die. As far as tradition goes, maybe its time that the patriarchical religion called christianity bite the dust, especially after all the scandals, and especially since most gun violence comes from christians.
I think most readers on the Huffington Post probably know that Easter didn't come from Judaism. Certainly, I don't know any practicing Christians who think that Easter came from Judaism. That's really not a claim anyone makes, so I'm not sure why it seemed pertinent to you.
Equality in and among ancient cultures is as diverse it remains today. There are between 10 and 30 million people living in slavery right now. Some non-Christian cultures or pre-Christian cultures were more egalitarian before the introduction of Christianity than after. Some weren't. The same, again, can be said of other faiths.
Your comment about Christians claiming to be spiritual doesn't seem to have a conclusion. Some Christians are, some Christians probably aren't. I'm certainly not interested in saying who is and who isn't. I'm certainly in no position to. Some of the most thoughtful religions people and atheists I know are ones from across traditions who believe in maintaining a certain degree of epistemological humility. It goes a long way.
Down with patriarchy. I agree. But I don't agree with blanket statements covering billions of people. If you do, you may want to reconsider how progressive you really are. best wishes.