Overview:

Ash Wednesday

A Reflection for Ash Wednesday

“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites…. anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden.”

Find today’s readings here.

Each year on Ash Wednesday, we Catholics head to church to listen to a Gospel reading against showy displays of faith and then step out into the street wearing a giant ashen cross on our foreheads. This juxtaposition is often noted, sometimes with a joke, sometimes with confusion. How can our behavior align with this command? “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.”

Most of us probably think: I don’t do this to be seen. I do it to be reminded of my immortality, and to grow closer to Jesus. I want to be kinder and more merciful. Good for us! But then, later in the day, when you hear someone say they’re giving up chocolate for Lent again, do you internally, just a little bit, roll your eyes? Congratulations, you’re a hypocrite, too. 

The reality is we are all hypocrites at some point. Our lives are filled with inconsistencies between our ideals and our behavior. We all fail to act in the way Christ calls us to act. The good news is we don’t have to be perfect to start working for change, in ourselves or in our world. Are you silently judging others’ choices of liturgy? Cut it out. Are you outraged at government injustices but doing nothing to stop them? Cut that out, too. Wherever you are falling short, do something to make your words match your actions. Do it joyfully. Don’t do it to be seen or to make a statement. Do it because it’s right and it will bring about good. 

Ash Wednesday is a reminder to start again. So wash your face, stop looking gloomy and start working for change (alongside your fellow hypocrites). 

Kerry Weber joined the staff of America in October 2009. Her writing and multimedia work have since earned several awards from the Catholic Press Association, and in 2013 she reported from Rwanda as a recipient of Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship. Kerry is the author of Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (Loyola Press) and Keeping the Faith: Prayers for College Students (Twenty-Third Publications). A graduate of Providence College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously worked as an editor for Catholic Digest, a local reporter, a diocesan television producer, and as a special-education teacher on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.