P is for Palm

Yesterday during the Ash Wednesday ashes ritual I got to wondering where our ashes came from: Did they actually come from burning last year's palms, did we purchase them or were they the ashes of something else besides our palms? So I asked our liturgist and sure enough they actually are the ashes of the palms we used on Palm/Passion Sunday. "Our maintenance men burn them every year for us," she responded.

Her answer made me smile--being in the maintenance department of a monastery is not exactly like that of the Erie Plastics plant right up the street!

Also yesterday I decided to check out the blog Busted Halo which I hadn't been to for months. Busted Halo is a contemporary webpage offered by the Paulists "for spiritual seekers of our age...in the Catholic tradition." This "Lenten" entry on their site made me more than smile, I laughed right out loud. Enjoy! Click here for their unusual "Ash Wednesday tradition."