Ashes to ashes

Well, today is the confluence of two important days, at least on some calendars. Just not mine. Anymore, anyway.

It's Ash Wednesday.

I grew up in a staunchly Catholic family - and, through college (other than my public school kindergarten), attended Catholic schools. 

So Ash Wednesday was a biggie. 

It signaled the beginning of Lent, with all the hoohah that came with it. Lent meant the keeping of the mite box, where you put aside money for the missions in excess of what they were already forcing us kiddos to fork over on a regular basis. The mite box - a little cardboard box decorated with cartoon pagan babies in all colors other than white - had little checkboxes on it, where you could "x" in whether you'd put in some mission money, given up something (like candy) for Lent, gone to daily Mass, etc. (I was never any good at giving anything up; nor was I one for daily Mass. The best I could do was throwing a nickel or a dime in every week so we could baptize some more of those cute little pagan babies.)

Lent also meant a lot more religious thangs going on. The weekly - every Friday after school - Stations of the Cross, where we got to sing the super-draggy dirgish hymn, "Stabat Mater." (At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesue to the last.) And, in my parish, the annual St. Francis Xavier Novena where, for nine-days, we went to a special afterschool service where we got to listen to some blowin Jesuit talk about St. Francis Xavier, and we got to lustily sing the the wonderful (to me as a kid) Francis Xavier hymn.

Oh, Father Saint Francis, we kneel at thy feet,
While blessings and favors we beg and entreat,
That thou from thy bright throne in heaven above
Wouldst look on thy clients with pity and love.
Saint Francis Xavier, Oh pray for us!
Saint Francis Xavier, Oh pray for us!

And where each year, we debated whether it was classier to sing the good saint's name as Fra-an-cis Zavier vs. Francis Ex-Zavier. (There was also a prayer that used the word "vouchsafe," so each year we had to learn once again what "vouchsafe" meant. It means grant.)

Lent was also backended with special services during Holy Week. And getting a half day of school on Spy Wednesday, and the entire day off on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. 

But it all started with Ash Wednesday, when we got ashes smudged on our foreheads, while the priest intoned “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” 

Since memento mori was a very big part of the regular parochial school curriculum, this reminder of our impending death was not exactly a big, startling deal. After all, the nuns were always yammering on about the the glories of martyrdom - the more gruesome the better. We were surrounded by bloody, violent iconography. (The Protestant cross is just a cross; the Catholic cross is a crucifix with a statue of the bleedy, tortured, dying Christ on it.) We were told all that time that we were terrible and deserving of an early death. 

The smudge of ashes as a reminder of our impending death. Yawn.

But it did let us troop around showing off to all the world that we were Catholic. As if the uniform green jumper and bowtie weren't enough of a giveaway. And just who were we witnessing for? Worcester's population at that time was about two-thirds Catholic. My neighborhood was more like 95% Catholic. Anyway, Ash Wednesday meant ashes on the forehead, which we all felt was kind of cool.

I know that today, if I'm out and about in Downtown Boston, I'll see a few people with ashes on their forehead. 

These days, the ashes are more likely to look like an actual cross mark. When I was a kid, any resemblance to a cross was accidental. This may have been because the priest was trying to zoom through 400 kids in short order and was just capable of pressing a smeary thumbprint on you. (The picture used here was the only one I found that wasn't a perfect ash cross.)

Today is also, of course, Valentine's Day, which when I was a kid was a big deal. At school, we exchanged valentine cards, and I'm pretty sure that in most of the years of my grammar school you had to bring one in for everyone in the class. It was one of their few gestures of kindness, the nuns wanted to spare any child from going without. 

Generally, kindness wasn't on the menu. We generally sat grouped by the nuns by their evaluation of our intelligence. Each quarter, everyone's report card was read out loud. The results of standardized tests were sometimes broadcast to everyone in the class. Not to mention the routine insults, putdowns, humiliations, and cruelties some kid or another was subject to on a daily basis. Etc.

I don't know why Valentine's Day was an exception to the general promotion of cruelty. Maybe it was because the nuns wanted to make some mission money by selling religious valentines they crafted up during their convent weekend recreations. Most of the nun-made valetines were a piece of construction paper with a relgious saying scrawled across it and/or holy card pasted on. (With aoly card: a nickel; without, two cents. They also sold fancy ones made out of old Valentine's Day chocolate boxes, but I never had fifty cents or a dollar to spend on a valentine for my mother. I was too busy poking any spare nickels into my mite box.) 

None of us liked the nun-made valentines, but we were pretty much coerced to buy a couple of them anyway.

Mostly we exchanged the cute and/or "funny" valentines that came in big packs - which you needed if you were going to give one to each of your 50 or so classmates. Many of them used puns of the "won't you bee mine" variety, where the card depicted a bee. 

And then there was this pretty bleak one I found on Colleen Eulere's Pinterest page. It's named the "WTF old fashioned valentines day card" and WTF is right. A little skunk who's thinking of two ways to kill himself if you won't be his Valentins. Surely this is a degree of violence (and abuser behavior) not generally associated with Valentine's Day greetings. 

But somewhat on point given that Ash Wenedsday and Valentine's Day coincide this year.

I don't remember this ever happening in my childhood, and, indeed, it did not. The last time it occurred was 1945. So it's a less-than-a-blue-moon occurrence.

Anyway, although I'm eons away from having been a Catholic, I don't think you wish people a Happy Ash Wednesday. But although it's not a high holiday on my calendar, I do know that you wish folks a Happy Valentine's Day.

So Happy Valentine's Day to those who observe.