Ash Wednesday for Children

Ash Wednesday for Children: 

Blow the Trumpet in Zion.

Gather the people, gather the children.

Good Friday and Ash Wednesday are two days in which children are recognizably absent from the Cathedral.  However; as I read the lessons for Ash Wednesday this year, I realized Joel is “trumpeting” for parents to bring their children to Ash Wednesday worship to support them in their discovery that they too are sinners.  There is so much for children to gleam from seeing their parents, the priests, their parish family outwardly and visibly wearing the ashen crosses.

The imposition of ashes is a visible, teachable moment for our children.  They begin wearing their own ashes with a new sense of belonging; that “I am one of them”.  As they then hear the familiar words of sin, forgiveness and repentance, they begin to wear them as an admission that “I am one of them and I too am a sinner.”  This is not easy for children today who are repeatedly told that they are "wonderful, extraordinary, capable."  Ash Wednesday makes it easier to make the admission that “I too am a sinner” because your children are now in the presence of everyone else making the same admission. 

We are all first marked with the cross with water at our baptisms.  To be marked with the cross at Baptism is an amazing, wondrous thing. On Ash Wednesday, we are marked with the cross using ashes and the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  The ashes and words remind us that we are not so wonderful.  In fact, we are all sinners.  Fortunately, the sign is not an X, marking us as hopeless rejects, but a cross reminding us that God loves and forgives us despite being sinners.    

Lent is a type of spring training for our children to become disciples.  They begin their training admitting to themselves and others that they are not perfect but that they are so blessed to be a child of God who loves and forgives them.  A child’s Lenten practice can become the turning point to realize they can commit to doing better.  Through this training, they begin living into God’s love for those who try and do well and also for those who try and do not do as well as they wish.

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Psalm 51:1-17  

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21

The above passages are the appointed lessons, Psalm and Gospel for Ash Wednesday.  I encourage you and your children to read these today and tomorrow.  Come hear them read aloud Wednesday and then live into them over the next 40 days.