Ash Wednesday attendance

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I’m curious… why do you think so many people attend Ash Wednesday services. It’s not a holy day of obligation, but it is the most packed Mass (& Communion Service) of the year, besides Easter & Christmas.

My pastor takes great advantage of the attendance, though. He explains to people that coming forward for ashes is a commitment to Lenten sacrifice, repentence, prayer & almsgiving. He tells people that if they are not sincere, to please not come forward just to do something without meaning; not if they think they might fail at true attempts, but if they really have no internal intention to come closer to Christ. We also take up a collection for the poor of the city this day.
 
Those that only go to mass on Ash Wednesday i like to call

CAE Catholics

Christmas, Ash Wednesday, and Easter Catholics. Those are the only days they go. 😃
 
It provides for some an opportunity to identify themselves with the Church, and to publicly show to others that they are still Catholics in good standing even though they may not go to Church regularly.

What I find strange is the local evangelical Protestant church in my town celebrates “Ash Wednesday” as well as the “liturgical seasons” of Lent (including all the “fasting” and “abstinence”) and Advent. They have an altar with a “Chi Rho” symbol on it.

They don’t use a lectionary, or have a formal liturgy. Services generally follows a standard Congregational or Baptist form. Now most of the congregation are former Catholics who were either the CAE type described in another reply to this post, or left sometime after Vatican II.

Odd church. Doesn’t cooperate much with other evangelicals in the area. Did engage once in an ecumenical service with both Catholics AND Unitarians. This church also shuns a nearby KJV Only Bible Baptist Church and a local Hispanic Pentecostal storefront.

Must be a white thing…after all isn’t God a white guy?:rotfl:
 
For our church anyway… people like to bring their families and get the ashes (my non-catholic husband always comes) - then, we have the Shrove Tuesday Italian Dinner after mass.
Brings 'em in, and praise the Lord for that - right? 🙂
 
I think it has something to do with “freebies”. Ash Wednesday is a day where the faithful “get something” (ashes), for whatever reason, pious or not. I believe it’s the same reason Palm Sunday Masses are exceptionally crowded.
 
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mtr01:
I think it has something to do with “freebies”. Ash Wednesday is a day where the faithful “get something” (ashes), for whatever reason, pious or not. I believe it’s the same reason Palm Sunday Masses are exceptionally crowded.
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A&P Catholics - Ashes and Palms. 😉
 
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mtr01:
I think it has something to do with “freebies”. Ash Wednesday is a day where the faithful “get something” (ashes), for whatever reason, pious or not. I believe it’s the same reason Palm Sunday Masses are exceptionally crowded.
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I wish that were true. Confession is free (and free-ing), but if we had as many people show up for Saturday Confession as for Ash Wednesday, our priests would be busier than St. Padre Pio.
 
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mtr01:
I think it has something to do with “freebies”. Ash Wednesday is a day where the faithful “get something” (ashes), for whatever reason, pious or not. I believe it’s the same reason Palm Sunday Masses are exceptionally crowded.
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I wish that were true. Confession is free (and free-ing), but if we had as many people show up for Saturday Confession as for Ash Wednesday, our priests would be busier than St. Padre Pio who said Confessions for 15 hours a day.
 
Maybe because of the reminder of our mortality, dust to dust. No one likes to talk about it, but it is a huge reality in life. Go to the ritual and recognize it, deal with it.

About confession, maybe we should roll a red carpet out the front doors to the curb on special days of the year. We could have those velvet ropes and a sign saying, “the line for confession starts here”. Passerby would naturally form a queue and come in.
 
4 marks:
What I find strange is the local evangelical Protestant church in my town celebrates “Ash Wednesday”
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Just wait until they “rediscover” full immersion imposition of ashes. :eek:
:rotfl:

tee
(shamelessly stealing the caption to a cartoon drawn by his brother some years ago)
 
It’s great that we see so many. However, there is some superstition also involved here. There is a feeling among some that if you don’t get ashes on Ash Wednesday, you won’t be alive the following Ash Wednesday. I don’t know how this got started or when it got started, but it is the reason why we see some on that day and never see them until the following year. We are called to do all that we can to keep superstition out of our faith.

Have a Holy Lent,
Deacon Tony
 
Way back when I still had a nun teaching in grade school she told me that Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday had surpassed Christmas and Easter for Mass attendance. She subscribed to the “get something for free” theory.

There is also a very strange issue in our parish. People who would never think twice about receiving Communion from an EMHC are scandalized that there is anyone other than the Priest distributing the ashes (my own husband is one of these). I just don’t get it.
 
what I never saw til I moved here was crowds of people standing outside during Mass, waiting for the distribution of ashes to begin, lining up for their ashes (crashing in to get ahead of the mass-goers) then walking out the side door and driving away. what is that about? They seem irritated that the Mass is allowed to get in the way of them collecting their ashes and getting on their way.
 
There is a strong Hispanic tradition of getting your ashes each year. Unfortunately the tradition of attending mass is less strong. Many of the Hispanic parishes give ashes after a Liturgy of the Word. Not enough remain to make it worth while completing the mass.

I suspect Texas is like California in this.
 
Our parish is about 50% Hispanic. Father distributes Ashes at the end of each Mass. So they have to stick abound 😉 .

He also gives a nice homily every year (in English and in Spanish) about how nice it is to see everyone and why it’s important for them to come on Sundays too. Mortal sin etc.
 
Deacon Tony560:
It’s great that we see so many. However, there is some superstition also involved here. There is a feeling among some that if you don’t get ashes on Ash Wednesday, you won’t be alive the following Ash Wednesday. I don’t know how this got started or when it got started, but it is the reason why we see some on that day and never see them until the following year. We are called to do all that we can to keep superstition out of our faith.

Have a Holy Lent,
Deacon Tony
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Appropo to this, from the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent:
There can be no doubt that the custom of distributing the ashes to all the faithful arose from a devotional imitation of the practice observed in the case of public penitents. But this devotional usage, the reception of a sacramental which is full of the symbolism of penance (cf. the cor contritum quasi cinis of the “Dies Irae”) is of earlier date than was formerly supposed. It is mentioned as of general observance for both clerics and faithful in the Synod of Beneventum, 1091 (Mansi, XX, 739), but nearly a hundred years earlier than this the Anglo-Saxon homilist Ælfric assumes that it applies to all classes of men. “We read”, he says,
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in the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.

And then he enforces this recommendation by the terrible example of a man who refused to go to church for the ashes on Ash Wednesday and who a few days after was accidentally killed in a boar hunt (Ælfric, Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, I, 262-266). It is possible that the notion of penance which was suggested by the rite of Ash Wednesday was was reinforced by the figurative exclusion from the sacred mysteries symbolized by the hanging of the Lenten veil before the sanctuary. But on this and the practice of beginning the fast on Ash Wednesday see LENT.
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newadvent.org/cathen/01775b.htm
 
I’ve heard the “freebie theory” too. It certainly makes sense.

Me, I go to start the season off on the right foot – I have this vague, foolish feeling that is “isn’t really Lent” if I haven’t received ashes.

If you get yer ashes in the morning and keep them throughout the day, people usually ask polite questions about them (or – this happened at my Seventh-day Adventist high school – come up to you and say “Do you know you’ve got something on your forehead?”). It could be an opportunity to witness.
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kmktexas:
He also gives a nice homily every year (in English and in Spanish) about how nice it is to see everyone and why it’s important for them to come on Sundays too. Mortal sin etc.
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That reminds me of the former pastor at my old Lutheran church. The first time he did our Christmas Eve service, his sermon was to the effect, “It’s nice to see you here, but you should really be coming Sundays as well.” It rankled a lot of people, but he made his point – and later became very well-liked.

On a side note, he left last year (I keep up with this because my grandmother is still a member of that church). I’ve seen the new pastor in action, and he treats the communion-service liturgy with more understanding, solemnity and reverence than many priests have for the Mass!

[/thread hijack]
 
Doesn’t anyone find it weird that more people show up on Ash Wednesday for the purpose of having dirt smeared on their foreheads than at other times to receive the physical presence of our Lord and God into their hearts and souls?
 
Sir Knight:
Doesn’t anyone find it weird that more people show up on Ash Wednesday for the purpose of having dirt smeared on their foreheads than at other times to receive the physical presence of our Lord and God into their hearts and souls?
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When you put it like that, it makes me wonder if it is an issue of worthiness, like, which reflects how worthy you feel? Maybe many identify with the unworthiness of being dust and needing to repent.
 
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