Are Protestant Sacramentals valid?

[TULIPed]

Agreed - it is entirely OK to have a preference.

Preferences are personal though, no? Said another way - personal preferences are by definition “selfish”. I wonder if - every now and then - accepting an invitation to attend church with a Protestant/Catholic in spite of what we prefer - and particularly if I know it will make the other person happy - wouldn’t be a bad thing? Especially if the invitation involves Christ at its center.

I think you guys would call such a thing “mortification” - to die a little to one’s self, no? Yes I know I’m meddling - but it’s meddling in the interests of ecumenism, so please forgive me and take it with a grain of salt please

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It really depends on the motivation for the invite.

I’m happy to attend the non-Catholic weddings of my friends and relations and help them to celebrate their day.
I’m also fine with attending non-Catholic funeral or memorial services and providing support to the grieving family and loved ones and grieving myself.
I would likely be okay with holding some kind of an ecumenical service, or ecumenical event, or attending a special service like the one the OP describes.

If it was some other situation, though, like a friend or family member just really wanted me to come to their church on an ordinary, non-event day, I would want to know a lot about the motivation behind the request. I was raised that, barring some special event, you don’t go to non-Catholic churches, for a lot of reasons. I might make exceptions to that policy in certain circumstances, but I never would have married someone who expected me to be marching down to his church with him all the time. Wouldn’t have even gotten past a few months of that relationship expectation.

 

[TomH1]

The terms ‘valid’ and ‘invalid’ do not refer to sacramentals. Whether or not any grace can be received from ashes blessed by a non-Catholic minister is something I do not know about.

Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation so Catholics are not required to go to Mass. However, if they are going to go I think it would be more appropriate for them to go to a Catholic Mass and receive ashes blessed by a Catholic priest.