The millions of Christians walking the earth Wednesday, bearing an ashy sign of the cross on their foreheads, may seem to some to be conspicuous trumpeters of their own piety.
To the wearer, however, the sign traditionally indicates his penitence, sinfulness, humility and mortality.
And in the midst of this discrepancy between interpretation and sign emerges the Gospel reading for Wednesday, from Matthew:
“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.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."
The difficulty for me is transforming Wednesday’s public sign into a private prayer. I imagine that Muslim women in their head scarves feel similarly somber each time they step out wearing their sign.
Ash Wednesday is the one day each year that my religious identity is announced without a word. The ashes shout “I am a Christian!” even as I struggle to be worthy of that title.
But Wednesday’s foremost agony, I fear, will have nothing to do with ashes. That distress will be a direct result of my Lenten coffee withdrawal.
Who decided that it was a good idea for a graduate student to give up coffee anyway? At the moment, the ashes seem a lighter burden.
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