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“Remember that You are Dust” — Ash Wednesday on Two Campuses
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February 22, 2023
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To mark Ash Wednesday, students, faculty, and families at Thomas Aquinas College’s two campuses gathered for Mass and to receive their ashes.
In Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel on the New England campus, Head Chaplain Rev. Greg Markey cited a homily by St. Augustine on Matthew 6:16-21, particularly Our Lord’s admonition to “not look dismal” when fasting. “Pride can be found not only in gaudiness and show of things pertaining to the body, but also in gloominess,” he said. “The danger lies in the deception, under the name of serving God.”
Fr. Markey went on to give an analogy of wolves in sheep’s clothing, warning against pretenders. He pointed out that the cross of ashes borne on the forehead of a Catholic is a symbol of men’s mortality, serving to remind them of their sins, not to be worn as a symbol of pride. “A Christian should not try to delight the eyes of men by superfluous ornament on this account, because pretenders, too, may assume the same frugal appearance in order to deceive those not on their guard,” he said. “Those sheep should not lay aside their own skins, for the wolves may attempt to cover themselves with them.”
Photos: Ash Wednesday in New England
In California, the campus’s chaplains donned their purple vestments and distributed ashes at each of the day’s Masses in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. Congregants filed down the nave to receive, leaving the communion rail with ashen crosses.
At the mid-day mass, Head Chaplain Rev. Robert Marczewski urged the congregation to remember Lent’s aims of prayer and penance. The practice of “giving things up for Lent” can be an occasion of pride, he warned, challenging students to use the season to grow closer to God: “Let us let our hearts be renewed and reinvigorated.”
