Rend your hearts and not your garments

It's still (just) Ash Wednesday, a day I always find curiously moving, largely because of the ceremony of the imposition of ashes, where one kneels at the altar, waiting to have the sign of the cross drawn on the forehead and the words 'remember that dust you are and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ'

It probably sounds insane to say that I find it comforting, but I do, in a counter-intuitive sort of way. There's a seriousness and honesty to it, it's grounded in a way in which life so often is not. Though I don't think I would be quite so keen on it if it wasn't combined with a Eucharist. Reassurance of God's love ought to follow penitence, otherwise it can just go sour. But in acknowledging our faults, and our utter dependence on God to do any good, we can be brought to open ourselves more deeply to Him.

For some reason I find myself thinking of the Larkin line, 'A serious house on serious earth this is.' And though 'Churchgoing' shows clearly that Larkin thought religion was on the way out, and was an agnostic himself, it does speak of one of the virtues of right religion (though not what any believer would think the central one...)