Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday - that wonderful day of the year when some of us starve ourselves, and maybe run around with ashes on our foreheads - that might be shaped like a cross, depending on whose thumb put them there - and which may or may not end up falling into your eyes, onto your clothes, etc. Good times, these. 

I feel the need for an Ash Wednesday-themed "most interesting man in the world" meme, that would go something like this: "I don't always go to Mass on Ash Wednesday, but when I do... ..." 

Oh, well thanks, Google (and whomever came up with this, it is apparently from diylol.com):

#ashwednesdayproblems  +:-)

I saw a great quote on Facebook this evening from Fr. Reginald Martin, O.P.: "If these ashes aren't going to find a place on our inside, we really don't have much business wearing them on the outside." 

How true. Will the manner in which we live this Lent show that the ashes we received today have found "a place on our inside"? Will this Lent - a word which means "springtime" - be a catalyst for spring-like renewal and new growth in our lives - in our walk with Christ, in our pursuit of self-mastery, in whatever good work we set out to do, beginning today?

"Behold, I make all things new."