Ash Wednesday, 2011

Yesterday was one truly awful day. Everything which could go wrong did. Everyone wanted everything now, this instant, without regard for what everyone else wanted or needed. The telephone rang incessantly, much to the consternation of the folks waiting at my counter for service, or those desperately wanting their repairs done before anyone else. And not a one of them wanted to be told no.

I nearly lost my temper with more than one customer; I nearly lost my patience and temper with my Dad, something I have never done, something I would mortified over if I actually ever did; most decidedly, not something I want to start doing when he's 75. It was as though getting anything accomplished required the movement of, not merely a mountain, but an entire range.

Then we went to get take out fish dinners from our Church, it being Ash Wednesday and all, only to discover when we returned home that the cod was baked, not fried. I have never been to a Church fish fry and not have the cod actually deep fried. So it tasted okay, but it wasn't what any of us wanted. In all the day was so bad, I almost didn't go to Mass as I had planned. I just wanted to stay home and have a beer; beer, like any other liquid, doesn't violate the fast we Catholics are required to observe on Ash Wednesday.

I went anyway. It's good to begin Lent at Mass, but as the rest of my family had went earlier, it wouldn't be right if I didn't go myself. So I went, admittedly reluctantly.

Good move. During the sermon, Father reminded us where the ashes he was about to put on our foreheads symbolically came from: the palms laid before Christ when He triumphantly entered Jerusalem in the days before He was crucified. Lent is about His fasting and praying for forty days before that, so that He could fulfill what He came here to do. Of course, he came here to die for us.

Then the distribution of the ashes. "Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Sobering. Soon after, for our hymn of thanksgiving, we sang Panis Angelicus (bread of Angels), one of the most beautiful and glorious songs in the Catholic tradition.

I am overwhelmed and overjoyed that I went. Here I almost lost my temper with my father over a simple question on a simple clarification of a parts order. I barked orders at my brother, my coworker, and let more than one customer know, through gritted teeth, that I was doing the best I could and that they just had to wait a minute. I pitied myself that the fish wasn't precisely what I wanted though it was very good, and a lot more than many others may have had to eat yesterday. All the while thinking how awful my day was.

Then I am reminded, in stark and certain terms and forms, of the beauty of the man who gave it all so I might have it all, despite my anger and self pity and the raw fact that I don't deserve it. It was the right amount of perspective for the start of Lent. It made the day glorious, and made me humble.