Some three years old, some thirty, and several closer to 3 x 30… All bearing this reminder that their time on earth was trickling away.īut like most Christian symbols, the imposed ashes don’t mean just one thing. And, macabre though it be, I couldn’t help but think that I was watching people in the process of dying. I happened to be the first in line for imposition last night, which meant that I sat in the front pew and watched as one after another walked by. But, of course, to have ashes imposed is ultimately an act of shocking honesty: accepting the image of the device that killed your Savior as a statement to everyone who consequently stares at you that you are a sinner - that those sins led to His crucifixion - and are destined for death yourself. In one sense, Ash Wednesday is all about deception, or at least, confronting the deceptions we practice (on ourselves most of all) in the days, weeks, and months leading up to Lent. Nor is there anything particularly “imposing” about it to others “odd” perhaps… So negligible a presence that it usually takes me less than an hour to forget that the ashes are there, brush the hair back from my forehead, and smudge the cross. And ashes make for a pretty light burden.

In our church, one can ask for ashes to be imposed on the wrist, or simply request an ash-free blessing. I’m sure it strikes some as an “uncalled-for requirement or burden,” though there’s nothing mandatory about it even for those who have freely chosen to go out on a Wednesday night and attend worship. What then to make of the Christian practice known as the “imposition of ashes”? It’s the centerpiece of the liturgy on Ash Wednesday (beginning of the forty-day season of penitence known as Lent), in which a priest or pastor dips his or her finger in ashes (traditionally, burned palm branches from Palm Sunday) and draws a cross on the parishioner’s forehead, “imposing” ashes on the skin. the order or arrangement of imposed pages.something imposed: as (a) a levy, tax, or (b) an excessive or uncalled-for requirement or burden.

Look up the word “imposition” in Webster’s, for example, and you’ll find four listings: It’s amazing sometimes that anyone can learn English.

Imposition of ashes liturgy