How does your congregation do at involving children in Ash Wednesday? Many children – not to mention their parents – will benefit from some preparation.

So we can live in hope that a God so close will carry us through every death, even our own. God is this close – a cross on our foreheads. Jesus is smudged on us, rubbed into our flesh, so that when we weep with all our hearts for those who have died, we are not alone. With Ash Wednesday’s cross of ashes, we are saying that even in the face of death, our loving God is as close as our skin. The same cross is inscribed on every Christian forever. The same cross is marked on the foreheads of the newly baptized.

This act might be straight-up depressing, did we not mark the ashes in the shape of a cross. We say the old words: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. We take dirt, ashes of palms, and press them onto each other’s foreheads. The day’s simple and stark ritual of ashes speaks honestly of death. Ash Wednesday is a gift of the church to us all. So it is important for us, as adults, to find ways to include our children in Ash Wednesday. There is no longer any way to touch or smell or hear or see the physical body of the one who has died.Ĭhildren know about death, the aching hole it leaves behind and if they do not know about it yet, they will soon enough. They know what it is like one day to be able to burrow their face in a cat’s fur, hold their grandfather’s hand, hear the voice of an auntie calling their name, smell the vanilla scent of Nana then the next day, to feel the sudden wretched absence that comes with death. Many kids by the age of 5 or 7 have experienced at least the death of a beloved pet, or even a family member or friend. Today’s post is by Miriam Schmidt, pastor/priest of All Saints in Big Sky, a shared ministry of the Episcopal and Lutheran (ELCA) Churches in Big Sky, Montana.Ĭhildren know about death.

Lutheran imposition of ashes