We have forsaken the ash, but not the urges to confess and condemn

ASH WEDNESDAY was the day when foreheads were marked with ash and the words ‘Memento, homo, quia pulvis es’ were said (or, in English, ‘Remember, man, that thou art dust’). 

This dust/ash shares its etymological root with ‘pulverise’. The Latin for dust being ‘pulvis’. Few people, far fewer than before, will wear ashes today, but the pulverising goes on. Apparently marked by astonishing change, our culture is marked far more by continuity. The thread that pulls it together is not what we purport to believe in, it is how we behave. In the end, however, the same dread threat hangs over us: ‘unto dust thou shalt return’.

It is questionable how deeply the Irish people ever believed in anything. Highly convivial and communal, at our best, our dark side is the urge to exorcise those who don’t fit in, nor play along. I say ‘play’ purposely. It is hard to take seriously now the practice of a faith that was so comprehensively abandoned so suddenly. It’s equally hard to take at face value the new norms.