I found this tension for the first time in my life both fascinating and surprisingly uncomfortable. on Sunday?) In short, to the casual observer, I could just as easily be a devout Christian as I could be a fervent atheist. There are no dietary restrictions to observe and explain over Brunch with friends (“I can’t eat pork…”) Mass is early on Sundays and has never conflicted with any other activity in my life: I cannot recall a time where I have had to forgo a social event, for example, because I needed to go to Mass. I do not have to wear a yarmulke or a hijab to conform with the conventions of my religion. Most of the time, it is easy, in fact, to be discreet about my faith.
Such an odd message for the single day of the Catholic year in which I bear an outward sign of my Catholicism. The Ash Wednesday Gospel implores us to pray in secret: “do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.” The message is clear: do good in order to do good. Nor was I surprised by the fact that I did not encounter a single other Catholic wearing ashes on that day (outside of our Church)–and I did find myself searching.īut what left me puzzled on this particular Ash Wednesday was the Gospel, which I have heard every year for my thirty-five years on this Earth, but which had never jumped out at me in quite the same way. I live in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, so this reception did not startle me. I received countless looks of bewilderment on the Upper West Side that day, some of which resolved into expressions of relieved comprehension, but most of which seemed to be suppressing an urgent: “Um, m’am, you have a big black smudge on your forehead.” On Wednesday, I wore ashes on my forehead in the Catholic Lenten tradition.
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