A Medieval Ash Wednesday

Howard and I put off our Valentine's Day celebration until next week. And so today I turned my attention to Ash Wednesday. There was no getting out of it, you know?

And already I can say: It is going to be one of those Lents.

Our 6 p.m. Ash Wednesday Mass was a Low Mass -- that is, long, silent, and mysterious to anyone who has not attended one before. A friend I have gotten to know at the St. Louis choir was thinking she might go to this Mass and so I made sure I was there. I had told her she could join us in the choir loft. Choir reciprocity! And if we sang a chant she knew, she could sing with us.

La la la la la la la.

What happened was, she did join us up in the choir loft. However. 

She lasted 10 minutes!

OK, 20 minutes. Or a half an hour. However long it took for the ashes to be distributed. It is funny, I am accustomed to the Latin Mass. We do not have Eucharistic Ministers or any lay people who distribute the ashes. We have nothing like that. There is a priest -- sometimes two, however in this case we had one. And there is a crowd. The church was full today. It can take quite a while.

And I am kind of oblivious to it. It is like my sister Margie, living in New Jersey, has come to expect traffic jams. She visits Buffalo and hits a bit of a backup on the 190, no big deal for her. She just keeps talking, whatever. Whereas I, living in Buffalo, am all mad. What is this, I am saying. No one on the radio warned us about this. What is this backup?

A modern Mass goer is like me in this situation. What is this? Why is the line for ashes a mile long?

Why is the Mass two hours long?

It just not is something a normal person can deal with. OK, the Mass was not two hours long today. However if Jake, the choir leader, had not been sick, it would have been. Not that I would have noticed. You sing a lot through a normal Mass. It flies by like a freight train.

As it was today, we had a Low Mass and it was a little over an hour. However those ashes, they took a while.And it was too much for my St. Louis friend, I am afraid.

Here is a snapshot someone took of us finally receiving our ashes.

After which she fled into the night. And I do not blame her. Heck, she must have been thinking. What have I gotten into?

Next time anyone mentions wanting to come to our Latin Mass I will know better.

Instead of being all welcoming, I am going to say, "You know what? Don't."

And if the person persists, I will say, "OK, but be warned, we are on 12th century time."

Ash Wednesday Meets Valentine's Day

This week brings what for me is the most dreaded day of the year. Ash Wednesday!

And it is this Wednesday. And it is on St. Valentine's Day.

This has happened before in recent memory, Ash Wednesday landing on the Feast of St. Valentine. It happened in 2018. I remember because I had to do a story on it for The Buffalo News.

Before that, it had not happened for 73 years! The year 1945 was the last time. If you were a kid then, you could live out your whole life happily without having to deal with this Ash Wednesday/Valentine's Day situation. Now here I am having to deal with it twice.

What did I do in 2018? This is why everyone should keep a Web log. It turns out that Howard and I celebrated the day afterward, on Thursday.  I had completely forgotten that!

However now I went and joined the St. Louis choir and I have a rehearsal on Thursday. So that will not work. Who knows. We will do something. Technically we could have that traditional lobster on Ash Wednesday. It is not meat. However... There just is that Ash Wednesday feeling. Perhaps we will celebrate a week later.

On the bright side, I am going to go sing at the Latin Mass. This is one plus anyway: I get to sing, and I do not know what it is these days, all I want to do is sing. I am singing in these two choirs every Sunday and that is not enough. I need holy days too!

Continuing to look on the bright side, Lent is early this year and that is a good thing. We can start the countdown to Easter early. Easter is the earliest I ever remember it being. March 31. Not even April!

In 2018, Easter was April 1. However this year is a leap year so it is a day earlier. Once we get into March Easter will seem near. Lent does not seem that long.

It is funny and interesting that this year, when Easter is early, we also appear to be having an early spring. El Nino brought a mild winter and aside from one nasty storm, we have had it easy. There are rumors I hear that we will be getting more snow, however I have been checking the forecasts and I do not see it.

 As I love to remind myself, "Lent" means "Spring." It comes from "Lenz" in old German. 

And this year I think we can take it literally.

Ashes for Valentine's Day

I must continue this Web log because the last post I had written was: "The Christmas Tree Quandary." And here it is, 60 degrees today!

Well, it was raining. We cannot get things right this early in the year. We cannot have warmth without rain. Still, it feels good.

And may I point out, that quandary did not last for long. Almost right after I wrote that post I went and took the tree down. I was not quite sure why. It was a very snowy day. But I must have felt something because that very evening, it began warming up, and the next day the snow began to melt. And I did a check for the daffodils and you know what? They were up!

I took a picture and that is it, at the top of this post. OK, so they will be only an inch high for a couple of months. Still.

Now I have no choice but to consider it spring. Lenz, to use the old word that gave us Lent. I got through Ash Wednesday even though it was the same day as St. Valentine's Day, an unfortunate coincidence I got to explore in the paper. We celebrated the good saint's day the Thursday after Valentine's Day. Howard took the picture at left. Look, that is a Cinnamon Pecan Swirl candle. Remember the snowy night I went out shopping for those? I will never forget that. It is a funny thing to remember, but I remember it.  "It crossed my mind that maybe I was dead." I remember that moment!

Meanwhile there was Ash Wednesday to deal with.

I got the mother lode of ashes on my forehead. I had a dentist appointment and I actually apologized for them.

"I'm sorry I am covered with these ashes," I said.

I mean, I had to say something! It was the elephant in the room. Here I was lying under these lights with all these ashes.

Clearly this is going to be one of these Lents. I know, I know, it is a holy time of year, a time of renewal, and still, I cannot handle Ash Wednesday, I just cannot. I lost five pounds out of stress and then gained them back out of stress.

The good news: Forward we go now into spring.

Next quandary: Gardening!