Yesterday, while I was coming back from Mass, I stopped by a shop to get something.
While I was there, a man looked around and said to a woman in the shop:
“All these Catholic people have started all these their occultic things. Where is it in the Bible?”
The woman replied:
“Ask sister here, I’m not a Catholic. I don’t know what to say.”
Then he turned to me and asked:
“Woman of God, where is it in the Bible that you put ash on your forehead?”
I told him gently:
“Ash is not an acronym. It does not stand for letters. Ashes are a symbol , a sacred symbol of repentance, humility, mourning for sins, and the truth of our mortality.”
He said, “Please, quote it ; where in the Bible does ash represent all those things?” So, I explained:
In the Scriptures, people humbled themselves with sackcloth and ashes to turn back to God:
*. Job said, “I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6)
. Daniel prayed and fasted wearing sackcloth and ashes (Daniel 9:3)
. The people of Nineveh sat in ashes as a sign of repentance (Jonah 3:6)
I also told him that on Ash Wednesday, when the priest marks our foreheads, he reminds us:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19)
He paused and said softly:
“Oh sister, now I see the reason why you people put ash on your forehead.”
And in that moment, it was clear that these ashes are not about outward appearance.
They are a reminder of our fragility, our dependence on God, and our need to repent.
