Best Ash Wednesday Poems
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday, the day to confess and repent
As we enter the solemn season of Lent
The ashes remind us that "Dust thou art"
And one day from this world we will depart.
Worldwide, the faithful honor this tradition
With devotional hearts and sincere contrition
But, sadly, some people are not so disposed
To "Love thy neighbor" their hearts are closed.
Thus, the Russian leader is attacking Ukraine
Causing destruction and inflicting pain
Amidst the bombings and rocket flashes
Businesses and dwellings are reduced to ashes.
Today sacred ashes we wear on our forehead
But whose soul will bear the ashes of the dead?
The guilt of this burden to the tyrant is given
In the eternity to come can he ever be shriven?
Molly Moore
Ashes of humanity
Scattered and lingered in hearts of purity
Hallowed and spirited within the psyche of infinity
Weaving with man's joy and sorrows
Entwined with lattices of honey yellows
Drifting in clouds of human form
Numeric and linguistic crypts of cuneiform
Endearing are thoughts and words, not jive
Sprinkled ashes etched on books of archive
Doors that opened to human interest
All come alive in ashes, blots and dearest
Your ash is the strength, honor of the fittest
Finally went to church today-Ash Wednesday
I went for company, communion and to pray
Liked the new people, what priest had to say
I really felt like I was forgiven for sins today
It used to be only God, hard to get Jesus into
My life and prayers, now it's bound like sinew
For money owed, no longer feel a need to sue
All's forgiven. Still talk to Bruce and sister Sue
Everytime attend church, learn something new
Everyday I pray alone, today was I born anew
I will go again, really enjoyed myself, the brew
Was wine in a silver cup with bread pieces new
Dipped into the wine and eaten with the others
Fellowship in God's love with sisters & brothers
Told female priest - many fathers and mothers
Baptized/confirmed Episcopalian and my mother
Sang in her Episcopal church, so sweet a voice
Larry dropped me off/picked me up, his choice
No singing, just prayer and sermon - REJOICE
When Jesus so returns - Will I hear his voice?
As I do every night, I will pray for redemption
I believe it will be later in the souls convention
I will see my beloved brother, parents, baby
I will go to Heaven all around us, just maybe
A day of prayer and fasting
To show the Lord our love is everlasting
We promise to sacrifice a luxury or a pleasure during Lent
It is forty days well spent
We will not partake in what we sacrifice until Eastertide
Hold on, we are in for a ride
From burning palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday
We repent and pray
With a cross on our forehead
As the Bible has aforesaid
Used as an external sign of repentance
And our hope for heaven admittance
Now comes the true test
Are you ready for the rest?
This is not a time to sacrifice something easy
For that would be meaningless and sleazy
Lent is meant to show God we repent our sins
For this is where forgiveness begins
If you are a smoker, give up smoking
Be thought provoking
If your pleasure is alcohol
Make sure you get a round before last call
Fasting is commonplace on various days of Lent
And should not be bent
For it symbolizes Jesus’ fasting in the wild before spreading His gospel
This includes many religions but one is not Pentecostal
Roman Catholics also abstain from meat
Vegetarians will surely not cheat
Do not get ashes from an urn
Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return
confronted with the truth
I scurried in my ashes
searching for reasons
reasons I was spared
light came slowly
beckoning my soul
"walk with me" He said
"I'll tell you a story-
I hope you have time
your remaining life
it will take to tell"
listening each day
wonders await me
pictures seem fuzzy
then slowly reveal
His path filled with glory!
and beckoning
still
Ash Wednesday reminds vain man
That each must slay false pride's ascend.
This day we note a pious practice
Once learnt by rote in simple gist.
Man is mere dust that is alive
In a brief trust, by grace to thrive.
An ancient lore bears repeating:
From times before, repentance flings.
Man is imaged in God's likeness,
In brief passage till end brightness.
A Christian rite and clear ritual,
Ash cross we write on head visual.
A sign to show we remember
The tact each knows from dust embers.
We come from dust, to dust return;
Life here is trust that love now churns.
This Lent we think upon the way;
The path that links tidings that stay.
Forty days we reflect on deeds,
Look deep to see, atone for weeds.
A change of heart and will and mind;
Let penance start to seek and find.
A change of pace and touch and feel;
To await grace to cleanse and heal.
A change of sight from earthly things;
To see new light, sense Spirit's sling.
We, each must pass from muddy stores
To pristine grass in soul's kind shores.
A certain call springs to each soul:
To bear and bring a new zest whole.
Here as we stand on thresholds clear,
Our Lenten trends groom faithful cheer.
Now each man frames the path to take;
Heed inner flame to rise awake.
Aware of need, each heeds belief,
Feel truth that seeds what soul perceives.
The Christ said: "Choose your new life..."
The road is made beyond man's strife!
The middle way is for all men:
Each soul must stay with inspired span.
Come then with heart attuned to grace,
Let each man start to live love's space.
Love calls to each to gather now;
To touch and reach to glimpse endow.
We, each must learn to love and act;
Love that we yearn answers love's pact.
From dust we come, to dust the end;
Live love's sweet sum in daily trend.
Leon Enriquez
18 Apr 2014
Singapore
As many Catholics make a trip to church
on this particular day which marks the beginning –
Lent, in its threshold of another liturgical event,
they wear that smudge on their foreheads.
This calls everyone to a conversion journey
it means turning to all who suffer in their lives;
fasting and praying and giving alms to the poor,
form the essence of what Lent really means.
A particular discipline especially in prayer
provides a continuum in God’s focusing;
it’s something that shapes us from within
a constant encounter with His divine presence.
Sackcloth and ashes are signs of repentance,
like those incidents with some prophets
such as Isaiah , Daniel , Joel , Jonah , or Judith
in their quest for a life worthy of God’s grace.
It’s a season of renewal as baptized Christians,
a reminder of our nature as mortal ones,
our identity that embraces to come to a fuller life
in the life of Christ who gifts us his love.
Described as a community of sinners,
with its strong need of repentance and understanding,
this event of Ash Wednesday that leads us to pray –
in our journey of conversion and transfiguration;
brings us to new life and closeness to Easter celebration.
We pray to you LORD this Ash Wednesday,
To thank you for this hoard of plenty,
For us to be charitable to those not so
Well possessed of the world's largesse.
Ash Wednesday, one day to reflect
why Christ our souls would resurrect.
Good it is to be in accord,
time spent in fasting and prayer,
repenting of sin and despair.
Good that forgiveness is implored,
not fearing fickle consequence
or flaunting lack of confidence.
Good, relationships are restored
between servant and the Master,
triumph instead of disaster.
Good is one day spent with the Lord.
Ash Wednesday, one day to reflect,
any Wednesday in retrospect.
Better to find a church with worth
where daily friends will help you cope
worshiping One who brings new hope.
Better for you God’s truth unearth -
studying the Scriptures with friends,
learning God’s wisdom never ends.
Better to know in wealth and dearth,
your faith in God is paramount;
and circumstances do not count.
Better any day to, discern your re-birth.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!
Best of all, our Creator God -
Daily, He is loving and just.
Best of all, our Savior Jesus -
Every hour, One you can trust.
Best of all, indwelling Spirit -
Each moment helps us readjust.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!
Steadfast holiness is a must.
written May 11, 2018
Leaves from palm trees burn,
Die into black ash.
Like these leaves move from life,
To death, the lamb of heaven is slayed.
The light of the world,
Extinguished by his created world.
His precious blood spilt,
His anointed head crowned with a thorny crown.
Ashes from ashes, dust from dust,
To ash and dust I shall return.
My wish is that I may make it to heaven,
On today, the day, ash Wednesday.
A pleasant cool settles
the ground flecked
by sunlight drizzling down
through a tall canopy
of trees. A slight wind
tickles the top leaves
with whispers.
All seems idyllic.
Yet forty years ago
on a Wednesday,
fire blasted the bush here
with a wall of furnace heat.
A blackened wasteland
was all that was left
leaving seventy-five lives
lost in its wake.
The bush never
counts the dead
nor records their names.
For it, there is only
blind obedience to life.
Eons have passed
with countless fires
scarred into the length
of its long history.
The land here is primal,
beyond our time, evolved
to bathe in cinders
and seed the future
in showers of flame.
Buffeted by hot, dry winds
and relentless heat,
its beauty becomes
an incendiary bomb
waiting to be lit.
But it harbors
no intentional ill
as it cycles through
its ancient playbook
of burn and renewal.
Our ways don't fit well
with such elementary
forces. As tenants, death
is sometimes the tragic
price we pay as rent,
the interest accrued
on love.
Nothing is meant to be,
but twenty six years later,
it claimed a further
one hundred
and seventy three.
They all have names
and leave families
with scars notched
into our history.
Opt to see truth with keen eyes sound,
Note dust from dust our common state.
Ask to know proof as feelings ground,
Sense what to trust through spheres of fate;
Heed the call now to know what's right.
Work then dear soul the path faith takes,
Embrace just how love brings insight;
Do work most whole the change you make,
Now is the time to check and see;
Etch heart and mind to forge anew,
Sense then clear chimes for you and me;
Do seek and find love that calls you,
Allow heart scope to cleanse and heal,
Yield faith and hope to love's goodwill.
Leon Enriquez
09 February 2016
Singapore
In the realm of eternal consciousness an idea was formed...
In the beginning of all creation the dust begun...
In the mist of the vast cosmos the dust transformed...
In the breath of the Creator you were born...
Dear Lord,dear Lord,be with me still
Holy Spirit,today refill
each word I speak and step I take-
Is now,Your will
Ashes,
Black, gritty, sooty signs
Painted on the foreheads
Of humanity parading about.
My thumb would be black
For several days following
The signing of so many foreheads,
The dark soot engrained
Within my right thumb print.
Ash Wednesday is a magnet
That draws people, compels people
into the dark oak pews
of equally darkened church naves;
Pews filled, spewing with humanity,
Seeking what? What are they seeking?
What compels them to be there?
To be reminded of their dusty origins?
The dust from which they were born,
Only for their bones to crumble
Into the dust in which they will buried?
Do they come to be reminded
Of their brokenness?
The product of their wretchedness
Inflicted upon others, or
Their own lives shattered into pieces
By other unfeeling wretches?
Do they come to hear the words,
“Turn away from sin
And be faithful to the Gospel,
Ring for the next forty days in their ears?
All these years of blackened thumbs,
The carbon of this dark, sooty ash
has been absorbed Into my blood stream,
Into my cells, and into my soul.
Yes, I know what this day reveals for me,
As I sign my wife and my son,
And our pet dog whose curiosity
Got her signed and unleashed
A sortie of sneezes and snorts.
The carbon on my forehead,
Is the same carbon of my body,
Which is in solidarity and sameness
With the carbon of my wife, son, and dog,
Roses and dandelions,
Shrubs and thistles,
Earth worms, and wood ticks,
Palm trees and pine trees,
Snakes and lizards,
Sharks and bullheads,
Lions and cattle,
Water, air, stone, and earth.
The ashes are all about our oneing,
All humanity, animal, nature
One and the same, derived
From the one and the same carbon
Breathed upon the universe
By the one, yet three, deity
Over five billion years ago,
When divine incarnated itself
Into carbon, the same black,
Gritty, sooty carbon on my forehead.
(c) Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.