Join us This Wednesday at 7:30 PM in-person or Streaming. For streaming information CLICK HERE
Streaming the service? Here are some clarifications:
Yes, you may impose Ashes on yourself. The ashes are not a technical sacrament, they are more sacramentalish, a thing where-in God is present, but not guaranteed as in the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, the essential Christian sacraments, or in the sacramental rites of Confirmation, Marriage, Unction, Reconciliation, and Ordination, the “all may, some should, but none must sacraments.
Ash Wednesday is a day where the liturgy is important enough and different enough to demand its own Proper Liturgy as defined in the Book of Common Prayer. But it is not a holy day of obligation, even in the Roman Catholic community, although, as evidenced by my time in New York City, there were very few, if any, Roman Catholics who did not get their ashes.
Finally, the question about where you might get your ashes from is from anywhere. If you have your Palms from last year’s Sunday of the Passion, burning and using those ashes on yourself is most appropriate. If you do not have those, cut a branch from your local plants, burn them, and use those ashes. Or, if there is nothing else, a local friend said to write out a Bible verse on a slip of paper, the burn the slip of paper to have ashes for applying.
Photo credit: Tracey Kelly; vaitekune. All rights reserved ©