Ashes, Ashes…We All Fall Down
Feb 18th, 2010 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Culture, Faith, Features, Formation, Politics, TheologyYesterday was Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season prior to Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden sparked curiosity when he appeared in public and on television with a smudge of ash on his forehead. One news anchor in the UK had no idea what it was. “What’s happened to his head?” asked Kay Burley on Sky News. “It looks like he’s walked into a door!” The co-host speculated that he had fallen on the ice while attending the Winter Olympics. (As if we needed more evidence that Britain is an utterly post-Christian secular culture.)
Biden is a practicing Catholic, and the ash was part of the Ash Wednesday mass he had attended earlier in the day. While usually associated with Roman Catholic expressions of…
