On that Wednesday, throughout the world,
as it is appointed, priests bless
clean ashes in church, and then lay them
on people’s heads, so that they may remember
that they came from earth and will return again to dust,
just as Almighty God said to Adam,
after he had sinned against God’s command:
‘In labour you shall live and in sweat you shall eat
your bread upon the earth, until you return again
to the same earth from which you came,
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’
This is not said about the souls of mankind,
but about their bodies, which moulder to dust,
and shall again on Judgement Day, through the power of our Lord,
rise from the earth, all who ever lived,
just as all trees quicken again in the season of spring
which were deadened by the winter’s chill.
‘Þu eart dust and to duste gewendst’: an Anglo-Saxon Ash Wednesday, spring, and the life that is ‘lent’ https://t.co/gW6skHKmRv pic.twitter.com/glBKXCfrlb
— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) February 14, 2018