I was sitting reading the Dothan Eagle one recent morning and thinking about the questions and daunting problems we are facing today. It can be very disheartening.
With the season of Lent fast approaching, and today being Ash Wednesday, I remembered the very sobering and comforting ancient custom of the ashes on the forehead. This custom was started and continues for the purpose of giving hope. It does so by providing spiritual help for confessing our sins to God, to secure the pardon of these sins and to afford us a spirit of contrition as well as the grace we need to do penance for them.
The ashes are placed on the forehead to remind us that our mind is the seat of pride and are applied in the form of a cross to remind us of this hope.
The words of Genesis 3 are recited aloud: “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris (Remember, man, that dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return).”
Those are certainly good words to contemplate in this season and in this world today.
Marc Shea
New Brockton
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