It was quite a sight on
Wednesday, 22 February (2012), as many Christians showed up at different places, offices,
banks, hospitals, bus-stops, and markets across Lagos (and across the world too), with ashes on their foreheads. That these Christians included men,
women and children; a mix of high-flying business executives, bank managers,
traders, market women, bus drivers, and okada
riders did not help matters. More
so, for the uninitiated, the fact that the ashes traced the sign of the cross
made the sight a bit eerie. “Has
any cult come abroad for some mission?” They might have wondered.
For Christians, however, it was a
sobering day. It was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Lent is the forty-weekday period of
prayer, fasting and abstinence, and almsgiving before Easter Sunday. Christians
troop to churches to receive ashes on Ash Wednesdays. The ashes come from the
burnt palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday.
At Christ the King, Ilasamaja, Lagos, on
22 February, the crowd was enormous.
Even with four Masses and ten priests and ministers, the three
thousand-plus capacity church overflowed with worshippers at each Mass,
sometimes with those outside outnumbering those inside the church. Such is the
significance Christians place on the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday, a
biblical symbol of mourning and penance, of conversion and repentance.
Interestingly, a good majority of those who received ashes on that day were not
Catholics, or even Christians.
