‘Ashes’

Our hand froze, before twisting open the hospital room door  knob. “No Visitors Allowed,” the sign read. The  wife pushed  me  gently forward. We tiptoed in.

Hooked to IV tubes, the gaunt man on the bed was a friend for decades. His kindnesses  were many. He  never  wallowed in self pity.  Tears  welled  as he gripped my hand. “Good of you to come,” he gasped.  I’m fighting.”

A chaplain earlier anointed him, then gave communion as “Viaticum” — Latin for the “way with you.” My friend wouldn’t  cross  the passageway   alone. Hindi  siya  mag-iisa.  At a loss for words, I squeezed his hand. Goodbye is  said in many ways.

As we closed the door, Thomas a’ Kempis words resonated. “Man is here today and tomorrow he is  gone…  You’re a fool if you assume you’ll live long, when you’re not even sure of one day…You will  pass  the same way.”

Most  of us  duck  the reality of mortality  year  round. “I know everyone has to die, 77-year old artist  Woody Allen wrote. “I  just never imagined  it would  happen to me”.  Ash   Wednesday rites tomorrow  nudge us  to get real. We all  journey to the grave.  “

On Dies Cinerum or  “Day of Ashes”, cinders are traced on foreheads of  all  those who step forward. That includes slum dweller   “walang ngipin at salawal” , gated enclave residents to those “who defy age and time with four-day stem cell treatment in Germany”, even Presidents Assassin bullets cut down Anwar Sadat in a  Cairo  parade. Ramon Magsaysay’s plane slammed into  Mount    Mannungal   and exploded in a ball of fire.

Kings are not  exempted. Lost  for  527 years, Richard III’s  mouldering  bones, still bearing a metal arrow in it’s back,  were excavated by scientists   this month,  from a car park in Leicester,  UK.

Wednesday’s ashes come from burnt Palm Sunday 2012 fronds. With oil of the catechumens, ashes are stirred into a paste. Then, a priest or lay minister traces the moist dust  on foreheads The rite harks back to the sentence handed down in an Eden  marred by disobedience: “By the sweat of your brow you shall get bread to eat, until you return to the dust from where you were taken.”

Death can not be bribed Only $658 million were recovered  from Ferdinand Marcos  estimated  loot  of  $5 to  $10 billion, Christian Science Monitor reports in “How Dictator Stash Their Cash”. Marcos  corpse is mummified.. Gone, too, is  Haiti’s “Baby Doc” Duvalier  ( $5.8 milliion recovered from $600 stolen )

The 8th century  “Gregorian Sacramentary”  details this rite which starts the 40-day Lenten period  But ashes go way back. “The other eye wandereth of  it’s own accord,” Job wrote more than two millennia before Christ.. “Wherefore, I repent in dust and ashes”.

“What is the meaning of our strange behavior?”, asked the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury   in his 2011 book:  “Writing in the Dust”.   “Three things, I believe. With these Lenten ashes, we confess. We promise. We hope” —- in a journey towards renewal.”.

The three asetical pillars of Lent — prayer, fasting and sharing with the needy — is common to  major faiths. Muslims observe Ramadan. Jews fast on Yom Kippur. Hindus and Buddhists set aside days for fasting.

Probably, the shortest way of putting  meaning to Lent and it’s sacrifices is “God teaching us how to take pain like a man”, the late Filipino historian Horacio de la Costa  wrote. .” Pain is part and parcel  of living. .This is how God made pain pay. “He loved me, and He delivered Himself up for me.”

The real experts on love  are those who have suffered much. Ask your own fathers and mothers. And they’ll  will tell you  love is not  nonsense about moonlight and roses, Love is giving, going without, making do — for the one you love. It takes much out of you  and pierces like a lance.

Yet  the’d   would not exchange it for all the world, parents will  add.  “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water.”  The little self-denials we practice during Lent will not seem so hard after all, do they?.”

In this ancient tradition, there’ve been  “some refreshingly untraditional directions” of late, notes America magazine.. In earlier Lents, Catholics were encouraged to “give something up,” e.g. movies, a  second helping of  dessert, etc. “More common today are invitations to “do something positive.”

Vatican II underlined the idea of  ‘social sin’. Where, for example, do you participate in structures that perpetuate sinful practices?  Instead of giving up chocolate, could you ensure  your  company pays a fairer wage?”

How  about  legislators here  giving up, for good,  their self-exemptions from audit into their spending of  tax money? The last Social Weather Survey found  “an estimated 3.3 million families experiencing involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months” They make do withaltanghap. Thats breakfast ( almusal ), lunch ( tanghalian ) and supper ( hapunan ) stitched into one. Share your food.

“When we hear the words, ‘Remember, you are dust’  we are also told  we are brothers and sisters of the incarnate Lord ’theologian Karl Rahner wrote. “We are: nothingness that is filled with eternity; death that teems with life; futility that redeems; dust that is God’s life”

Lent ‘s ashes make two choices clear. “”This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses,: Moses told his rebellious people..”Choose  life, so that you and your children may live.”

Beyond a handful of ashes is an offer of “life to the full”. After Ash Wednesday is Easter Sunday —  and  an empty  tomb.