You Are the Palms and the Ashes

Imagine you are the palms.

Waved aloft in triumph and praise last year, the symbol of Palm Sunday. Now dried and brittle, gathered to be broken and burned in holy fire.

It takes mere seconds to sear the palms. To transform them as unrecognizable from what they were. Smoldered to soot, their dirty grey now a far cry from the strong, slender green they were at their prime.

What sears us like that? What turns us from palms to ashes?

Life brings a thousand ways we are burned. But we do not disappear. The ashes of what we were can become a powerful sign—as outward and obvious as the smear of soot we will wear on our foreheads today.

The truth at the heart of our faith is that suffering is not meaningless. It is terrible, but can still be transformative. We bear this proof on our skin today. We will live it out over the next forty days. We will become what we receive.

Imagine you are the palms.

Imagine whatever was smooth or straight about your life becoming bent and broken. Imagine whatever was young and green—strong and beautiful, jubilant and triumphant—now burning in hottest flames.

But now imagine that what looks like death is not the end.

Imagine being cooled with care, gathered with reverence, blessed with love, sprinkled with holiness. Imagine being spread and shared—with hundreds more than the single hand that once held you.

Imagine being pressed on young skin, old skin, soft skin, wrinkled skin, dirty skin, over and over with words of prophetic power. Imagine being turned into the cross, dark and startling for all to see. Imagine being carried out into the world as a sign of the Savior.

We are the palms. We are the ashes.

Today we are transformed.

Life brings a thousand ways we are burned. But we do not disappear. // @laurakfanucciClick to tweet

Read the Ash Wednesday sermon from the pontiff twenty years ago.

Laura Kelly Fanucci is a mother, writer, and director of a theological project on vocation. She and her husband are raising four sons and wrote a book together on grieving the loss of children, Grieving Together: A Couple’s Journey through Miscarriage. She is the author of seven books including Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting and Living Your Discipleship: 7 Ways to Express Your Deepest Calling. You can find out more about her here. She is the author of the Blessed Conversations Mystery: Behold study found here.