I just realized it's ash Wednesday.

[Chino]

I had no clue. It's 3:10 and I just saw my first ashed forhead today. I must have walked by atleast 2000 people today. Does this concern any of you religous folk? I ask because my Grandmother used to bitch every single ash Wednesday about how fewer and fewer people receive ashes. I remember when I was in third grade, our whole school walked to the church and got the ashes. It was warm in the classroom that day and I was wearing a sweatshirt. I started sweating and wiped my forhead with my sleeve. My sweatshirt was covered with black and the next thing I know the teacher grabs me out of my chair by the arm and tells me to go to the principle's office. The principle walked me to the place the priest lived (forget the name, but it's also where we went for confession, it happened to be right across the street). She made me do confession, apologizing for wiping off my ashes, then had the priest give me a new cross on the head.

[bosk1]

Does this concern any of you religous folk?  

No.

[emindead]

Yes.

[Ħ]

Does this concern any of you religous folk?  

No.

[Orbert]

Does this concern any of you religous folk?

No.  Our Ash Wednesday service is tonight, and I'll walk out of there tonight with ashes on my forehead.

[rumborak]

Totally forgot about that custom until I saw a few people at Harvard Square with it. I used to get it as a kid too, I remember.

rumborak

[pogoowner]

The men's choir that I help run just sang at an Ash Wednesday service a couple hours ago. Of course, I'm not Catholic (and neither are 90% of the guys in the group), so I didn't receive the ashes.

[Orbert]

I'm not Catholic either, but for whatever reason, my church has revived a number of rituals normally associated with Catholicism.  We take Communion not every week, but the first week of every month, which is six times more often than when I was growing up (I think most Protestant branches were down to just Easter and Christmas for a while) and we brought back ashes on Ash Wednesday a few years ago.  As I sit here typing, I have ashes on me.

It's fine with me.  I don't think of it as specifically Catholic, more like "Old-school Christian" in general.

[hefdaddy42]

Not worried.  It's a man-made custom anyway.  If it makes people feel better about themselves to observe it, then OK, but whatever.

[Pirate]

I got ashes at school. I still don't understand the point. I get eating the eucharist and fasting - ashes don't make any sense to me.

[sirbradford117]

Does this concern any of you religous folk?  

No.

Catholics are in the minority, so it doesn't surprise me.  However, at Notre Dame EVERYONE had ashes yesterday, and my church where I played 2 services was packed both times.  So I know the tradition is still alive in the right circles.

[rumborak]

My roommate egged me on to do lent, so now I'm going for a month without coffee (which I was consuming way too much, so that's definitely good). Booyah for being a cultural Christian!

rumborak