Maybe your neighbors’ ashes lasted longer because they were more sinful and needed more time to repent. :-)

Anyway, I thought the news article was funny in that of all the carbon-fast recommendations, none probed the use of something other than ash as it is a carbon by-product of burning palm leaves.

I sent this article to two of my closest friends who also happen to be Catholic. They both howled . . . and then asked for forgiveness.

Now Canary…I believe global warming would be more likely to happen than O’Balmy ever having an ash mark on his forehead!

Possibly a turban…but I could never envision the ash mark! I think he would die before wearing a mark of Christianity! lol

Considering his behavior…I expect he gave up Christianity for lent.
Could you imagine the looks on his muslim homeboy’s faces if he showed up with and ash mark on his forehead!

K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid)

Forget worrying about any one denomination and strictly follow the Bible…both from the Jewish and Christian point of view. Nothing else matters. No particular denomination should override that one source of your faith. If you study it, it has everything you need to know God. The earthly church denominations can really confuse us.

Those of you who gave up on your churches…I hope you will consider independently going back into the Word, before giving up your faith due to man’s stupid interference in a clear and simple message from His Word.

Prayers are with you all.

Pitssburgh Post-Gazette: Every Ash Wednesday comes the question about ashes: to burn or to buy?
It’s the tradition that counts
By Ann Rodgers Mar 03 2010

“It was such an ordeal. The palms don’t burn easily. I tried mixing it with oil, but you get all of these strings in it. We tried to grind them down with a mortar and pestle. I admire anyone who does that,” said the Rev. Brall, provost of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Downtown.

Burn vs. buy is a debate for churches as Lent begins.

“They go a long way,” she said. “I was there for 8 1/2 years, and we went through a quarter of a pill bottle in that time.”

The Rev. Thomas Sparacino, pastor of St. Mary, burns palm fronds with the help of the church’s maintenance man. If it’s a large batch, they do it at the maintenance man’s home, but they burn small amounts in the barbecue on the rooftop patio of St. Mary’s.

Burning the palms requires patience — they smolder rather than burst into flame, he said. He removes strings by forcing the ash through a kitchen strainer, then buries the remains in his mother’s garden.

There, Shrove Tuesday — the day before Ash Wednesday — is marked by panicked calls from clergy.

“They can’t find their ashes,…It happens every year,” said Judy Pearce, buyer for the Diocesan Purchasing Commission.

The ashes, from a Texas Palm nursery that also supplies fronds for Palm Sunday, are one of the great bargains in church goods. A bag of ashes for 100 people costs $3.50; a bag for 1,000 costs $12.75. Given the large size of Catholic parishes, some go through several of the largest bags each year.

But it’s also messy, time-consuming and likely to contaminate the ashes with burned paper or wood used to start the fire. Commercial ash comes from ovens that incinerate the palms alone, he said.

Ashes are a universal symbol, Father Murrman said.

“Many cultures use ashes in various ceremonies to indicate a consciousness that we are going to die. At the same time, there is also a consciousness that from ashes we are reborn, that there is a kind of renewal through fire,” he said.

The “small cross” school cites Jesus’ admonition that those who are fasting should not make a big display, but wash their face and comb their hair so that God alone knows of their sacrifice. The “large cross” school says that the penitent isn’t showing off, but bearing witness.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06060/662780-51.stm

As a Catholic child, I thought my Catholic church was cheap, my forehead ashes were gone by the time I got to the mirror. I wanted to be a nun, and took my witch costume for Halloween and made it into a nun habit, and wore it all the time pretending to fly & sing outside like the flying nun, or inside listening to the Singing Nun, or Maria, to include playing on the piano. When the nuns started forever changing their outfits it wasn’t fun.

My Green neighbor’s Episcopal ashes last all day. They drive their SUV to far places to build fires, camp, and pollute our natural waters by swimming in them, and shooting fire-crackers over the mass water. Then they come home and point fingers at all the neighbors, while they put garbage in the recycle bins. They have a lawn mower with extension cord. It’s about doing your best.

I left the Methodist church after I encountered a really young, radical minister in OK who was very anti-marriage (they all fail, you know, why bother). My husband left the Catholic church after his father got his 19 year marriage ‘annulled’ so that he could marry again and attend a more ‘progressive’ Catholic church (my husband also no longer speaks to his father).

It is not any one church – they are all having certain areas/churches that are buying into this pc and new age social garbage – which is bringing down all of them.

It is no wonder that more than 76% Americans claim they are Christian but Church attendance is dropping like a rock.

Religion (true faith) should not be about moving into the mainstream – ‘We are in this world, but are not to be of this world’-John 7:14-15

What are those black marks that appear on Catholic foreheads every Ash Wednesday? Are they windmills made with pencil?

The debate over whether Jesus’ Universal Church = physical international religious bureaucracy rages on. Regardless, the Catholic Church remains the most permanent institution of the past 2000 years. Who knows truly to what degree its been subverted by neo-pagans, perverts, masons, and lord knows who else.

Many Conservative Catholics out there too.. just apparently not in leadership. It’s painful to think about and I hate how the media only highlights the unclean element; sigh, all we can really do is pray for our church.

I’LL GIVE UP MY CARBON WHEN THE PULL MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS FROM AROUND IT

You think they’ll sell?

Being Pennsylvanian.

I pay to get good seats at the theatre….I shouldnt have to pay to get seated at church. It’s money…just as it has been for centuries….

I will give up nothing for lent. I want to be like our church leaders, and our elected officials…

Okay, of the 1000′s of ways you witnessed, that came to 1001 then this would make whatever “this” is 1002.
If I got it right, wave that majic stick your swinging, to bring me good luck. Just kidding ; )

Conservation is good for everyone, however, I guess I missed the lecture on what exactly this has to do with getting closer to God?

Of the 1000s of ways I have witnessed church leaders completely missing the boat on showing and explaining divine fingerprints in this world, I guess you can add this to 1001.