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IN THE CHURCH
February 19, 2019 | The Valley Catholic
Palms to Ashes: A Few Things to Know About Ash Wednesday
By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – Ash Wednesday
is March 6 this year. Here are some
things to know about Ash Wednesday
and the kickoff to Lent:
In the Table of Liturgical Days,
which ranks the different liturgical
celebrations and seasons, Ash Wednes-
day ties for second in ranking – along
with Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension,
Pentecost, Sundays of Advent, Lent
and Easter, and a few others. But Ash
Wednesday is not a holy day of obliga-
tion, though it is a day of prayer, absti-
nence, fasting and repentance.
Top ranked in the table are the
Paschal Triduum – the Holy Thursday
Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday
and the Easter Vigil – along with Easter
Sunday. Good Friday isn’t a holy day of
obligation either, but Catholics are en-
couraged to attend church for a liturgy
commemorating Christ’s crucifixion
and death.
Ash Wednesday begins the liturgi-
cal season of Lent. There are hymns
that speak to the length of the season
– one of them is “Lord, Who Through-
out These Forty Days” – but the span
between March 6 and Easter Sunday,
which is April 21, is 46 days. So what
gives?
“It might be more accurate to say
that there is the ‘40-day fast within
Lent,’” said Father Randy Stice, associ-
ate director of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Divine
Worship.
“Historically, Lent has varied from
a week to three weeks to the present
configuration of 46 days,” Father Stice
said in an email to Catholic News Ser-
vice. “The 40-day fast, however, has
been more stable. The Sundays of Lent
are certainly part of the time of Lent,
but they are not prescribed days of fast
and abstinence.” There are six Sundays
in Lent, including Passion Sunday.
The ashes used for Ash Wednesday
are made from the burned and blessed
palms of the previous year’s Palm
Sunday.
“The palms are burned in a metal
vessel and then broken down into a
powder. I believe ashes can also be
A woman receives ashes during an Ash
Wednesday Mass Feb. 14 at St. James
Church in Setauket, N.Y. (CNS photo/
Gregory A. Shemitz)
purchased from Catholic supply com-
panies,” Father Stice said.
“As far as I know, palms from the
previous year are always dry enough,”
he added. “Parishes normally ask pa-
rishioners to bring their palms shortly
before Ash Wednesday, so there is no
need to store them. People usually
like to keep the blessed palm as long
as possible.”
Almost half of adult Catholics, 45
percent, typically receive ashes at Ash
Wednesday services, according to the
Center for Applied Research in the
Apostolate at Georgetown University.
You might not have noticed, but the
use of the word “Alleluia” is verboten
during Lent. What is known as the
“Alleluia verse” preceding the Gospel
becomes known during Lent as “the
verse before the Gospel,” with a variety
of possible phrases to be used – none of
which include an alleluia.
“The alleluia was known for its me-
lodic richness and in the early church
was considered to ornament the liturgy
in a special way,” Father Stice said, add-
ing it was banned from Lenten Masses
in the fifth or sixth century.
Ash Wednesday also is a day of
abstinence and fasting; Good Friday is
another. Abstinence means refraining
from eating meat; fish is OK. Fasting
means reducing one’s intake of food,
like eating two small meals that to-
gether would not equal one full meal.
“Fasting during Lent followed the
example of Jesus’ 40-day fast in the
wilderness. It also recalled the 40 days
that Moses fasted on Sinai and the 40
days that Elijah fasted on his journey to
Mount Horeb,” Father Stice said.
Filmmaker’s New Movie, ‘Across,’ Tells Story of Father Augustus Tolton
By Robert Alan Glover
Catholic News Service
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Father Augus-
tus Tolton, the first African-American
priest ordained for a diocese in the
United States, was born into slavery
and endured myriad obstacles, both in-
side the Catholic Church and out, as he
relentlessly followed his call from God.
Nashville filmmaker Chris Foley,
inspired by the story of Father Tolton’s
life, has written and directed a short
film, “Across,” about the Tolton family’s
escape from slavery.
“I spent about three years develop-
ing and writing the film, beginning
with a short article I read about Father
Tolton, then I attended a talk on him
in Chicago given by Bishop Joseph
Perry in 2015,” Foley told the Tennessee
Register, newspaper of the Diocese of
Nashville.
Bishop Perry, a Chicago auxiliary
bishop, who has family from Nash-
ville, is postulator for Father Tolton’s
sainthood cause, which was opened
in 2010 by Chicago Cardinal Francis
E. George, giving the priest the title
“servant of God.”
“It was at the talk that I first men-
tioned my goal of making a film about
Actress Nina Hibble-Webster, right, portrays Father Augustus Tolton’s mother in the movie
“Across,” written and directed by filmmaker Chris Foley of Nashville, Tenn. The short film tells
the story of Father Tolton, who was the first African-American priest ordained for a U.S. dio-
cese and who is a candidate for sainthood. (CNS photo/courtesy Director Christopher Foley)
‘Gus’ – as I now call him – to Bishop
Perry, but I don’t think he took me seri-
ously,” recalled Foley.
Serious he certainly was because,
said Foley, “this is a man who became
a role model for priests – black and
otherwise – in this country.”
Augustus Tolton was born into slav-
ery in 1854 on a plantation near Brush
Creek, Missouri. He was baptized at St.
Peter Church near Hannibal, Missouri.
His father left to try to join the
Union Army during the Civil War;
he later died of dysentery, according
to accounts Father Tolton told friends
and parishioners. In 1862, his mother,
Martha, escaped with her children –
Augustus, Charley, Samuel and Anne –
by rowing them across the Mississippi
River to the free state of Illinois. They
settled in Quincy.
While the family was living in
Quincy, a parish priest allowed young
Augustus to attend the parish school
over the objections of white parishio-
ners. There he learned to read and write
and was confirmed at age 16.
He was encouraged to discern his
vocation to the priesthood by the Fran-
ciscan priests who taught him at St.
Francis College, now Quincy University,
but could not find a seminary in the
United States that would accept him.
He eventually studied in Rome at
Pontifical Urban University. He was
ordained for the Propaganda Fidei
Congregation in 1886 at age 31 and
was expecting to become a missionary
in Africa.
Instead, he was sent back to Quincy,
where he served for three years before
going to the Archdiocese of Chicago in
1889. He spearheaded the building of
St. Monica Church for black Catholics.
Dedicated in 1894, the parish grew
from 30 parishioners to more than 600
under Father Tolton’s energetic leader-
ship. He died after suffering heat stroke
on a Chicago street July 9, 1897.
“In the end, Father Tolton’s story is a
great example of suffering, because he
never finished a church he was build-
ing in Chicago and died at age 43 from
heat exhaustion during a heat wave in
1897,” said Foley.