4Real Forums: Where to receive Ashes

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Topic: Where to receive Ashes

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Alison
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Posted: Feb 08 2008 at 7:37pm \| IP Logged

I got a phone call on Friday from my mother in New Zealand and during it amongst other things she mentioned receiving Ashes on Ash Wed. at her local Anglican church(she's Catholic). Is anyone familiar with this practice; she said her parish priest(a Monsignor) was present also plus about six other Catholics. Now we have always received the ashes in place of the penetential rite after the homily during Mass on Ash wed. so I wondered if there was any "given" in this. I mean I do know at mum's church they also say the Apostles Creed at Mass rather than the Nicene which I also thought a little odd...is it just a case of the further we are from Rome...
thanks in advance
Alison

Rachel May
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Posted: Feb 09 2008 at 3:28pm \| IP Logged

In college one year there were 2 Ash Wednesday masses listed (school paper? bulletin? I don't remember). I happened to pick the time that came with the female priest...it was an Anglican service. I remember the female priest being less weird than I expected...because she didn't wear makeup.

That's about all I remember.

I *think* you are allowed to sub the Apostle's Creed for the Nicene at masses where there are children present (I think that's how it says it in the missalette but you could peek in one and see. It says it near the creed.), but I've never seen it done.

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kingvozzo
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Posted: Feb 09 2008 at 8:48pm \| IP Logged

I know that any one is able to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday service. I guess in your mom's case, it's ecumenism?

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Noreen
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Alison
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Posted: Feb 11 2008 at 2:27am \| IP Logged

Thanks for the help Noreen and Rachel. This forum sure is a "minds" of information!

Alison

SallyT
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Posted: Feb 11 2008 at 9:13pm \| IP Logged

The Anglican Ash Wednesday rite is more or less identical to the Catholic rite. Depending on where you are, or what "flavor" of Anglicanism a particular parish happens to espouse, you can have a "high-Catholic" service, identical to if not "out-Catholic-ing" a Catholic service (with the not-so-minor caveat that the words of the Prayer of Consecration are rendered ambiguous enough that there's room what happens NOT to involve the Real Presence).

I'm a former Anglican who's now Catholic, so clearly I don't think an Anglican Mass can substitute for a Catholic one, or I'd still be Anglican! There's also the not-so-minor problem of the orders of the person imposing the ashes -- of course in Rome's eyes an Anglican priest's orders are invalid, but the waters are muddied even further by the presence of women priests and, in the U.S., bishops, so you increasingly can't know that the person administering sacraments or otherwise fulfilling a priestly position, even if he's male, hasn't been ordained in some totally wonky irregular way.

I don't know that that matters in the instance of receiving ashes, but it does seem a little weird that a Catholic contingent, including a priest, would join with an Anglican parish for this rite, especially as it involves a Mass in which either one side or the other can't receive. Seems a weird time to get ecumenical, but if all they're doing is imposing ashes -- well, I really don't know enough about the parameters of what's normative when it comes to Ash Wednesday! I've never seen anyone except a priest in either setting impose ashes, so maybe it's a little strange to be receiving them from someone who's effectively, from a Catholic viewpoint, a lay person? Or was the Monsignor imposing ashes side-by-side with the Anglican priest? (and why wasn't he doing it in his own parish for his own parishioners?)

I'm not looking down my nose at the situation -- it just raises those questions in my mind. But how Ash Wednesday is *usually* done in an Anglican church is almost identical to how it's usually done in a Catholic church, with full Mass.

Sally

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kingvozzo
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Posted: Feb 11 2008 at 10:59pm \| IP Logged

Imposition of ashes does not have to be within a Mass, it's often done here at a Liturgy of the Word. Also, lay ministers are able to distribute them. I suppose that would address the ordination issue?

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Noreen
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