By Terri MacKenzie, SHCJ
This ritual expands our dust-remembrance by celebrating our coming from stardust and by reflecting on the marvel of dust. It is meant to enrich current Ash Wednesday services, not to supplant them.
Needed: at least one candle and a dish of dirt or glitter to which everyone will have access. Decide who will read. Begin in as much darkness as is practical.
Leader: To begin, let us pause to recall past times when we have received ashes on our foreheads and heard the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Remember how that influenced your best experiences of Lent.
Pause.
Carry those thoughts and graces with you now, but place them in a larger context: the context of the entire universe and its amazing 13.8 billion-year history. Perhaps we can remember back to when we did not know the story of how stars formed and died in the process of bringing Earth to existence. After billions of years, thanks to God’s living and acting in our world and in us, we became part of this blessed creation. We who are stardust are connected to all life; we have a role in this sacred story!
Light candle(s).
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