Ash
Wednesday is a Christian festival marking the first day of Lent,
which traditionally is a time of penitence and fasting, leading up to
Holy Week and Easter. The name is derived from the practice of
blessing ashes, made from the palm branches of the previous year's
Palm Sunday, and using them to mark the sign of the cross on people's
foreheads, accompanied by the words (based on Genesis 3.19):
'Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return'. The ashes
are a sign both of our mortality and of sorrow for our failings.
The
liturgy below is appropriate for use by any group of people. If
possible, sit in a circle or round a table. You will need a piece of
paper and a pen for each person present, matches, and a fire-proof
container to burn the paper in. Please
exercise
common sense when using matches, and ensure everyone's safety.
Everyone
is invited to join in saying the responsive words in bold
type. There may be one leader to say the biddings, or you
can take it in turns, round the circle.
The
liturgies, celebrations, ceremonies, prayers, and reflections offered
on this blog are the result of my thoughts, reflections, and
experiences, woven together using my own words and sometimes adapting
words others have used: I am indebted to their wisdom. Please use
these liturgies freely, developing them as suits your own context –
but I would always be pleased to hear from you if you do so.
Opening
words:
For
everything there is a season,
and
a time for every purpose under heaven:
a
time to be born and a time to die;
a
time to mourn and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes
3.1,2a,4b)
Today
is a time to reflect, to clear our minds and spirits
from
all that we have cluttered our selves up with,
the
many thoughts and feelings that clog up our freedom,
the
many regrets that prevent us from moving forwards,
the
many fears that make us cling to the life we know:
Today
is a time to rest in the grace of our Creator.
A
short time of silence is kept for private reflection
on
the preoccupations that we need to release in order to progress
Act
of Penitence and Release:
We
all need to admit our sorrow for our selfish preoccupations,
for
our lack of courage and of trust.
We
all need to admit our shame
for
the things we have said and done that were unloving,
and
for the loving things we have not said or done.
Each
person takes a piece of paper,
writes
down what they need to say sorry for and to let go of,
scrunches
up the paper, and places it in the fire-proof container.
Let
us release the things for which we are sorry, and for ever let them
go:
We
release for ever our unloving actions and words;
we
release for ever our neediness, our fears, and our anxieties;
we
release for ever our impatience, our pride, our regrets;
we
release for ever our joys and our pains.
We
release for ever all that prevents us
from
being our true selves.
The
papers are burnt within the fire-proof container.
Ensure
that they have safely turned to ash.
Let us unclench our fists and our hearts:
May
our hands and hearts be open to whatever is ahead.
A
short time of silence is again kept for private reflection
Responsive
reading:
adapted from Psalm 51
Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love: Purge us and wash away all we have done wrong.
As
you desire truth in the inward being,
therefore
teach us wisdom in our secret hearts:
Let
us hear joy and gladness;
create
in us clean hearts,
and
put new and right spirits within us.
Restore
to us the joy of knowing your presence,
and
sustain within us willing spirits to seek you and to act from love:
Accept
our broken and contrite hearts,
that
we may, from now onwards, live in peace and trust,
and
always respond generously to the needs of others.
Grant
us ears to hear the truth that you would speak to us,
and
eyes
to see the path you would have us take:
Walk
with us on the Lenten journey,
and
until our days end.
Reading:
extracts
from East Coker by T.S. Eliot
In my beginning is my end. In succession houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth which is already flesh, fur, and faeces, bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf. Houses live and die: there is a time for building and a time for living and for generation and a time for the wind to break the loosened pane and to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots and to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto... In my beginning is my end... Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. The houses are all gone under the sea. The dancers are all gone under the hill... They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant... All go into the dark... And we all go with them... I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre, the lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed with a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness, and we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama and the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away... I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing... In order to arrive there, to arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, you must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess you must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not you must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know, and what you own is what you do not own, and where you are is where you are not... Home is where one starts from. As we grow older the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated of dead and living. Not the intense moment, isolated, with no before and after, but a lifetime burning in every moment and not the lifetime of one man only but of old stones that cannot be deciphered. There is a time for the evening under starlight, a time for the evening under lamplight... Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers; here and there does not matter; we must be still and still moving into another intensity for a further union, a deeper communion through the dark cold and empty desolation, the wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning...
Music:
Corala
Barbateasca Ortodoxa: Laudati
pre Domnul
or
another piece of music of your choice
Closing
words:
In
my beginning is my end:
In
my end is my beginning.
We
rest in the grace of our Creator in life and in death:
There
is a time for every purpose,
and
a season for all things;
a
time to mourn and a time to dance,
a
time to be born and a time to die.
Death
is the threshold to something new,
something
we cannot yet see or hear or imagine:
We
cannot yet cross over that threshold,
although
our lives are brief
and
will one day come to an end.
All
matter originated in the burst of heat and light
which
created our galaxy billions of years ago:
We
are made of the same stuff
as
the stars, the planets, and this earth itself,
which
we know in this life as our home.
From
earth to earth, from ashes to ashes,
from
star-dust to star-dust, we shall return.
We
remember that we are star-dust,
and
to star-dust we shall return.
May
we, with all creatures, come home at last,
to
rest free from illusion, pain, or regret,
and
for ever in peace:
Amen.
So may it be.
