Shrouded statues and forehead crosses

Ash Wednesday by Julian Falat.

For those Catholics among us, Lent has begun, with its purple and ashes and symbols.

This year I’ve been digging into why we cover statues with cloth as we get close to Easter. After all, isn’t the art in churches meant to draw us closer to God?

Why veil that?

Our parish church was packed on Ash Wednesday for the evening Mass, and of course, like everyone, I hoped to receive the grace of a really wonderful start to the Lenten season.

But what I really hoped for was an artistically brilliant cross of ashes. A really dark one, clearly cruciform, that wouldn’t brush off at the first inadvertent touch. Not because it would make me look holy, but because as Lenten symbol it’s just so cool.

I’m not alone: Catholic celebrities are sporting their ashes online and in my dive into Lenten practices, discovered that in some recent years in America, Ash Wednesday has surpassed Christmas for Mass attendance.

That should blow our minds.

It means a ton of people who normally don’t choose to go to church turn out to be marked for penance.

Why are people flocking to have a cross traced on their foreheads?

Well, it’s not a new phenomenon for starters. Apparently, ashes originally were given to people who were seriously grave sinners, and receiving the ashes marked a period of penance prior to be readmitted to the church at Easter. Then others like nuns and monks started doing it too as a way of voluntarily entering into a time of penance, and soon so many people were doing it that in 1091 Pope Urban II made it universal.

It’s kind of nice: as the sacrament of Confession became private rather than a public thing, the ashes served to remind us that we are in fact all sinners – even if we don’t tell the whole congregation our sins anymore.

And though we don’t get formally expelled from the church building like those early penitents, we do all have our statues and images covered with purple cloth for a while to deprive our senses and signal to us our distance from holiness.

So what about the Christmas-now-Ash-Wednesday Mass-goers?

I think it’s as simple as that yearning in our hearts for healing which can only come from God. Those ashes are a sign that the world truly doesn’t satisfy – and we know it.

If you’re wondering, I did get an excellent cross on my forehead this year. My housemate laughed when she saw me and took my self-satisfaction down a few pegs.

Which perhaps was not a bad start to Lent after all.