Decades ago brave parents put their children on one-way flights to the United States and freedom.

At the age of 10, Oscar Pichardo left behind his parents, friends, possessions and native land. Oscar and his brother Jesus were among 14,048 unaccompanied Cuban minors between the ages of six and 18 who were airlifted out of Cuba to the United States after Fidel Castro took power. Their parents were not allowed to leave Cuba.

Decades have passed since this grassroots effort nicknamed Operation Pedro Pan took place, yet the details still read like a Communist-era spy novela clandestine underground movement in Communist Cuba, C.I.A. and State Department assistance, an activity kept secret from the U.S. media, and a young Irish priest in Miami coordinating the efforts.

But for Oscar and most fellow Pedro Panes (pronounced “Pah-ness”), as they call themselves, this implausible spy story is first and foremost a story of love; the measure of a love so great, so unselfish, that it moved parents seeking safety for their children to send them unaccompanied to a foreign country.

Procedure Intended to Intimidate

Oscar remembers vividly the hugs and kisses exchanged with his parents at the Havana airport on August 25, 1961 and the intimidating, terrifying hours that followed as he and his brother waited behind the glass wall la pecera, or “fishbowl, ” as the waiting area was known. On the other side of the glass, his parents stood bravely, desperately trying not to show their own suffering, while keeping an eye on the two boys for as long as possible.

“We went into la pecera before noon that day, and we did not leave until close to midnight,” Oscar says. “I sat with my brother but we did not talk. It seemed no one was talking. I’d look for my parents, sometimes having a difficult time spotting them in the crushing mass of humanity pressing close to the glass. I’d smile halfheartedly, but I did not cry. I couldn’t look often.”

Over the next long hours, two armed milicianos, members of Castro’s militia, sat behind a desk in the back of the waiting room and called on people. If you made it this far, you had already filed all required papers and paid all fees to exit the country. The procedure was solely for intimidation. For children traveling alone, it was particularly terrifying.

“I must have been staring too intently,” recalls Oscar, “because an elderly man came to where I was sitting and very quietly told me to look somewhere else it would not be good to bring attention to myself.”

When their names were called, Oscar remembers, “My brother and I were asked a couple of questions and we returned to our seats. I remember looking for my parents [on the other side of the glass] as I made my way to my seat and spotting a look that appeared to be relief on their faces.” When the door leading to the airplane opened, the 10-year-old sought one more view of his parents as he walked out, sending a wave to where he had last seen them.

Oscar Pichardo spent two weeks in Miami’s “Camp Kendall,” one of the refugee camps set up to receive the exiled children, before he and Jesus were sent to St. Joseph’s Home for Children, an orphanage in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where they lived until his parents left Cuba a year later. Now a parent to three grown children and grandfather to one, 60-year-old Oscar views his parents’ decision to send their boys out of Cuba with both admiration and awe.

“You had to live the stark reality that our parents faced and led them to make the hard decisions born out of love and courage to protect their children,” he explains. “When it came time to decide to either submit to the state or send the children to safety, Cuban parents chose freedom for their children sending them unaccompanied to the United States.”

Setting the Stage

Unthinkable. Impossible. Unacceptable. The idea that children would be better off without their parents is simply unimaginable to our 21st-century American experience. Yet this painful scenario has, unfortunately, repeated itself time and again in contemporary world history.

During the Spanish Civil War, in the mid-1930s, thousands of children were evacuated to France, Belgium and England for safety. During World War II, over 7,000 Jewish children were hidden from the Nazis by the French O.S.E. network and were later smuggled into neutral countries. In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, approximately 1,000 British children were sent to the United States for their protection.

In the spring of 1975, some 2,000 Vietnamese children were airlifted to the United States through Operation Babylift as Saigon fell to the Communists, many sent out as “orphans” by their own parents to spare them from a possible bloodbath or starvation.

“Context is the key, and it’s very difficult today to understand what Cuba in 1960 was like,” notes St. Augustine, Florida’s Bishop Felipe de Jesus Estevez, himself a Pedro Pan.

“All the Catholic and Christian schools were closed by Fidel Castro. One hundred fifty priests had been thrown out of Cuba. That gesture alone provides the tonality of the repression. There was a determination by the revolution leaders to repress any dissent or any democratic thinking and it was a totalitarian hard line,” remembers Bishop Estevez.

He was 15 when he left in July 1961, and was placed at St. Vincent Villa, an orphanage in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In 1960, a year after Fidel Castro rose to power, his regime had already transformed Cuba’s landscape. Property owned by Spaniards, Americans and Jews had been confiscated. Foreign-owned businesses were seized. Neighborhood committees, fashioned after 1930s Nazi Germany, were set up to control and spy on every community block.

Cubans remembered the Spanish Civil War and the 5,000 children who were sent to the Soviet Union for indoctrination and feared the same thing would happen in their country. Parents reasonably feared losing the “patria potestad,” the parents’ right and duty to raise their children, a reality that eventually came to pass in Castro’s Cuba.

A Secret Movement is Born

It all began rather by happenstance.

In October 1960, a Cuban boy named Pedro was sent unaccompanied by parents to Miami. When refugee relatives couldn’t care for him, someone brought the 15-year-old to the Catholic Welfare Bureau (CWB, which became Catholic Charities), where Father Bryan Oliver Walsh, director of the bureau, made arrangements for him.

About the same time, a Cuban mother brought two children to Florida’s Key West, dropped them off and returned to Cuba. Walsh quickly realized that the mounting Cuban exodus would likely include many more unaccompanied “Pedros,” and he began to lay the groundwork.

Simultaneously, back in Cuba parents began planning with James Baker, the headmaster of Ruston Academy in Havana, how to get their children out. Baker, an American citizen, traveled to Miami and asked Father Walsh for assistance. A few days later Baker submitted his first list of possible unaccompanied children. The original plan was for approximately 200 children. On December 26, 1960, the first two children arrived: 12-year-old Sixto Aquino and his sister Vivian, 14.

After the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 3, 1961, the Department of State authorized Father Walsh and the CWB to notify parents in Cuba that student visa requirements had been waived for their children, giving the green light for children to travel unaccompanied on commercial flights to the United States.

As word got out in Cuba about the priest in Miami who would look after young refugees, the clandestine exodus network spread out all over the island. Thousands of visa waivers were sent by Miami exiles to their relatives in Cuba, along with the required $25 money order for the round-trip airfare.

Miraculously, Father Walsh and his network of agencies convinced the U.S. media to embrace a “spirit of cooperation” that kept Operation Pedro Pan out of the news for most of its existence. The longer it stayed out of the news, the better the probability that the Cuban government would stay out of the way.

Part of Operation Pedro Pan included visas for the parents left behind. “This fact had to be kept secret,” explains Bishop Estevez, “so that it could take place in spite of the vigilance of the Cuban authorities. It is an important aspect of the program because it reflects a Catholic understanding of immigration, which is family reunification.”

Operation Pedro Pan ended abruptly in October 1962, when the Cuban missile crisis put a halt to commercial air service between Havana and the United States.

The Cuban Children’s Program

What today we refer to as Operation Pedro Pan actually consisted of two distinct facets. The first part was the secret network on the island for getting the unaccompanied minors out of Cuba. Once in Miami, the goal was to connect the children with relatives or friends who could take care of them.

The second element was the Cuban Children’s Program (CCP) run by the Catholic Welfare Bureau, which was responsible for the refugee children who arrived in Miami and had no family in the United States. This continued to operate for many years after Operation Pedro Pan concluded.

Over the 21 months that Operation Pedro Pan was operational from December 1960 to October 1962, 50 percent of the children were reunited with family or friends in Miami. The other 7,464 children were placed in the Cuban Children’s Program led by Father Walsh and the CWB. Eighty-five percent of the children cared for by the CWB were between the ages of 12 and 18.

Operation Pedro Pan was funded by private donations, while the U.S. government funded the CCP’s foster-care program. No children were placed for adoption, since the purpose of the program was to safeguard parental rights.

The main problem became the lack of facilities to care for the minors in the Miami area, so Walsh and the CWB reached out to Catholic agencies across the country seeking foster homes and group-care homes, many associated with religious communities.

The program ultimately placed Pedro Panes in over 100 cities in 38 states.

Seventy percent of Pedro Panes were boys over the age of 12, so special group homes staffed by Cuban houseparents for adolescent boys were opened in several cities, including Wilmington, Delaware; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Lincoln, Nebraska; and the Florida cities of Jacksonville, Orlando and Miami.

Years later, then-Msgr. Walsh explained his initiative in a 1971 article in the Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs: “What the Catholic Welfare Bureau did was to provide a means for the Cuban parents of that period to exercise their human right to direct the education of their children. No one can deny that separation from one’s family is always traumatic and painful. How could it be otherwise?

“However, at times it is necessary because it is the lesser of the two evils. The real heroes of Pedro Pan were the parents who made the hardest decision that any parent can make.”

The Rest of the Story

Pedro Panes were sent from every province of Cuba. Most were alumni of Catholic schools closed by the Cuban government, and from middle- or lower-class families of various ethnic backgrounds, including black and Chinese. Although the majority were Catholic, at least 500 were Protestant or Jewish.

Eight Pedro Panes became priests, and two of them are bishops: St. Augustine’s Bishop Estevez and Bishop Octavio Cisneros, auxiliary of Brooklyn. There is no data for how many pursued other religious vocations.

Now in their 50s and 60s, Pedro Panes live all over the United States, and even in other countries. Those in the United States learned English, became American citizens and succeeded in school. Some became professionals and entered politics, like Guillermo “Bill” Vidal, Denver’s first foreign-born mayor. Many married other Pedro Panes, though there is no official record of those numbers.

Not all were happy endings, however. Some parents were not allowed to leave for years, and some not at all. The 1962 end of commercial flights between the United States and Cuba began a three-year period during which it was extremely difficult to leave Cuba, impacting many Pedro Pan parents waiting to leave.

But on December 1, 1965, under an agreement between Cuba and the United States, for the purpose of reunification, the Freedom Flights began giving first priority to the parents of unaccompanied minors. Close to 90 percent of those children still under care were reunited with their parents by
June of 1966.

Perhaps the most renowned Pedro Pan is Dr. Carlos Eire, whose memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy (Free Press, 2003), won a National Book Award. Eire was 11 years old when he and his brother Tony left Cuba in 1962.

Eire had a difficult, isolating experience living in a series of refugee camps, foster homes and, later, with an uncle. Ironically, he says, it was because of his Jewish [first] foster parents’ efforts that he stayed Catholic. They “forced me to go to church by myself every Sunday. This gave me a sense of personal responsibility for maintaining my own religion.

“My faith supported me through the worst of times only in an inchoate way. I had no clue, really, as to what faith really meant,” says Eire, who holds the T. Lawrason Riggs Chair in the Religious Studies Department at Yale University. “As I see it now, God was looking out for me, even when I had no clue. I pleaded with God and the saints to protect me from harm.

“But on a daily basis especially in the hellish group home the protection seemed to be missing. It was a dark night of the soul, so to speak. At the worst times, I thought that maybe God didn’t care. But I never gave up believing that God and the saints could help me.”

Eire and his brother were separated from their mother for three and a half years before she was able to reach the United States, and they never saw their father again.

Others, like Juan Pujol, never reunited with their parents. Sixteen when he left Cuba in 1962, Pujol remembers “looking forward to being free, to be able to go to church and practice my Catholic faith without being harassed or persecuted.” But Pujol’s father died, and his mother had to stay to care for her elderly mother. So it was 1979 before Pujol could return to Cuba and see his mother.

Their parents’ sacrifice, says the Miami Beach resident who lived at three different Florida camps during his stint under the care of the CWB, “is to be recognized and commended. They gave us the opportunity to live a full life in a true, free society. I have learned to appreciate every little thing that is given to me, and I have tried to pass this to my children and now my grandchildren.”

That Was Then, This Is Now

Fifty years after the great exodus, most Pedro Panes have come to terms with their parents’ desperate choice. Like Aida Cabrera Morris, they “won’t tolerate” criticism of their parents’ decisions.

Morris, a resident of Almeira, Spain, was only nine years old when she and her 11-year-old brother, Julio, left Cuba on May 1, 1962. In spite of having to live at Queen of Heaven Orphanage in Denver for four years before her parents joined them, and acknowledging what she describes as terrible circumstances for her brother, Morris still applauds her parents’ move.

“It is the most courageous, unselfish, hardest decision that any parent could ever make to separate yourself from your children simply because you know it’s their best chance in life,” she proclaims.

Mired in grief over the loss of her husband, this college professor found a kindred spirit in another widow: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

On July 17, 2004, I walked my daughter Katie down the aisle of Bellarmine Chapel in Cincinnati. On April 9, 2011, I walked my daughter Annie down the aisle of St. Clare Chapel. A few months later, on July 23, I did the same for my daughter Liz at Holy Cross-Immaculata Church. Each time, I did it alone.

Like other widows, I have embraced both the bitterness and joys of my life without my late husband, Scott. The marriages of my three daughters, all after his death in 1999, have been among the joys I cherish, as other widowed friends treasure high points in their children’s lives: graduations, sports triumphs, pregnancies and births. Each year, more and more women and men in my life join the ranks of the widowed. All have their own stories, mostly shared privately with intimate friends.

But the rank of “literary widows” is also on the rise. First on the scene: Joan Didion’s National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking. I’ve always admired Didion as a writer, and as I read the book, some sections did resonate, but more often I found myself, as a writer, envying her elegant and poignant style.

Recently, I received a book about widows from a friend: Antonia Fraser’s Must You Go?, a memoir of her years with Harold Pinter and, ultimately, of his illness and death. Again, I admired the craft of her writing. My judgment of the book was echoed in the words of a friend, a recent widower, when he finished reading it: “It’s sad.” As fascinated as I’ve been by these memoirs of writer-widows, I wondered whether any writer had not only shared the pain of widowhood, but had also allowed readers a glimpse into how she had moved through her grief to new life.

The answer was on my bookshelf: the collected writings of St. Elizabeth Bayley Seton. In looking back over my years of widowhood, I realize my own emotional and spiritual journey has mirrored Elizabeth’s. Although the details of her plunge into grief and eventual resurrection differ from mine, key elements in her life offer a guide for returning to wholeness after the devastating loss of a spouse.

First Taste of Grief

Elizabeth lived and died several centuries before me. Still, she’s a saint easy to connect with, especially for widows. How she loved her William, her best friend and “dearest treasure.” They reveled in each other’s company, doting on their five children, even finding time in their young marriage to share reading and music: Elizabeth playing the piano to accompany his violin.

After the death of William’s father, Elizabeth supported him as he struggled to keep the family’s shipping business solvent. She stood by his side through his humiliating bankruptcy. The daughter of a prominent New York physician, by 1800 Elizabeth was describing her reduced financial and social situation to her friend Julia Scott: “I have this last week, given up my list to the Commissioners of Bankruptcy of all we possess, even to our and the children’s clothing.”

Three years later, with William’s health deteriorating from tuberculosis, they boarded a ship for Italy, desperately hoping he would bounce back with a change of climate. Eight-year-old Anna Maria accompanied them, while the four younger children remained with relatives in New York.

The trip did not end well. Arriving in Leghorn, their ship was hauled into the harbor where the Seton family was quarantined because of fears that they were carrying infection from America. At the end of the required 30 days in cramped, dank quarters, it was clear that Elizabeth’s husband was dying.

William was eager to see Pisa, though a physician warned that the trip might kill him—and it did. On Dec. 27, 1803, Elizabeth wrote in a journal to her “soul sister” Rebecca, William’s sister: “Oh, Oh, Oh, what a day. —close his eyes, lay him out, ride a journey, be obliged to see a dozen people in my room till night—and at night crowded with the whole sense of my situation—O MY FATHER and MY GOD the next morning at 11 all the English and Americans in Leghorn met at the grave house and all was done.“

‘Hazard yet Forward’

The realization that life has changed in some dramatic way may take a while to sink in. My husband’s death was as predictable as William’s. Diagnosed in July 1999 with aggressive brain cancer, Scott underwent surgery and, three months later, six weeks shy of his 53rd birthday, my best friend and father of our three children was dead. The immediate cause listed on his death certificate was “adult onset pneumonia.”

Although Scott’s death was inevitable, the swiftness of it took us by surprise. Once admitted to the hospital, he never regained consciousness, but we knew by the tears flowing down his cheeks during our farewell prayer in the hospital that he sensed we were with him during his final hours.

Like Elizabeth, I had no choice but to move on. She returned to New York to raise her five children; my three daughters were 13, 15 and 18 and needed a mother now more than ever. Early in my widowhood, I drew inspiration from words I remembered from the Seton family crest: “Hazard yet forward.” The “hazards” were all around me: How could I protect and nourish my children? Would I be financially secure enough to keep them in the home they loved? How would I cope with the daily frustrations of car repairs, clogged drains and a sick family pet?

Moving forward was made a little easier when, like Elizabeth, I relied on my friends, stayed in touch with my spiritual core and turned outward when the urge was to hibernate in grief.

How lucky for the orphaned Seton children that they had a mother like Elizabeth: nurturing, protective, well-read, creative and fearless. How lucky for Elizabeth that she had friends to support her as she rebuilt her life.

Although her sister-in-law Rebecca died in 1804, Elizabeth had forged new friendships in Italy with the Filicchis—Antonio, Amabilia and Filippo. It was through them that she was first introduced to the “real presence” of the Eucharist. A year after her return to the States, she left the Episcopal Church into which she had been baptized and embraced Catholicism—frowned upon as the religion of lower-class
immigrants in New York.

Through the years the Filicchis offered advice—spiritual and practical—especially as Elizabeth fretted over her two sons’ inability to find a profession for which they were suited.

Longtime friends Eliza Sadler and Julia Scott remained a sustaining force in Elizabeth’s life as she carved out a niche for herself as educator and Sister of Charity. Elizabeth’s letters to both bear marks of a settled friendship: They are at times playful and, at others, drenched in grief.

She turned to pen and paper during Anna Maria’s illness to reflect on her daughter’s final days. To Eliza, she wrote: “It is true the dear, lovely and excellent child of my heart is on the point of departure—the last week she has been every moment on the watch, expecting every coughing fit would be the last, but with a peace resignation and contentment of soul truly consoling.”

Weeks after her daughter’s death, she sent Julia (whom Anna called “Aunt Scott”) a letter thanking her for money for her daughter, but more for her enduring friendship: “How true a comfort have I left when possessed of such a friend as you are.”

How could I have survived these last years without my friends? Their support began even as Scott lay dying. One friend surveyed local cemeteries, recommending a site I was unfamiliar with, then made arrangements with a funeral home—unpleasant tasks that had been on Scott’s and my to-do list once he finished radiation.

Later, this same friend intervened with our pastor to allow another friend, an ordained minister, to deliver the funeral homily. A longtime friend in my neighborhood, employed in the men’s clothing industry, helped me choose an outfit for Scott. He also took his clothes to the cleaner’s and delivered them to the funeral home.

Over the past decade, friends (among them, my five sisters and three daughters) have allowed me to heal. They have shared books, movies, vacations and afternoons at the theater. Two married couples regularly welcome me as a third for dinners. One of my gay friends refers to himself as my “permanent date.” In celebrating and remembering the days before widowhood—anniversaries of Scott’s death, his birthday, our wedding—my friends acknowledge that he is still a part of my life, though no longer present to me in the same way.

Beyond This World

With the support of her friends, Elizabeth survived the challenges of raising children, becoming the family breadwinner and dealing with sometimes difficult clergy as she established her community of women religious. But there was an intangible reality beyond this earth that sustained her in a different way: her religious faith.

Even before William’s death, she had a deep life of prayer and worship through Trinity Episcopal Church in New York. As a busy mother and wife, she read religious books. Her journals and letters make frequent reference to the sermons of the Rev. John Henry Hobart, whose preaching she looked forward to every Sunday. After her conversion to Catholicism, she took comfort in the Eucharist as she faced the challenges of holding the Seton family together.

To Amabilia Filicchi, who had prayed Elizabeth through the decision to become Catholic, she wrote: “The heavy cloud has given place to the sun shine of peace. You may suppose my happiness in being once more permitted to kneel at his altar, and to enjoy those foretastes of heaven he has provided for us on earth, now everything is easy, poverty, suffering, displeasure of my friends all lead me to him, and only fit my heart more eagerly to approach its only good.”

A few years later, she wrote to her sister-in-law Cecilia: “So this bread of angels removes my pain, my cares, warms, cheers, soothes, contents and renews my whole being.”

Time after time, in her “instructions” to the Sisters of Charity and her letters to friends, Elizabeth made clear that the Eucharist was the center of her life, the source of her strength as she awaited her own death, when she would be united with Jesus and reunited with her “Seton.”

On his deathbed William said, “When you are all again together don’t say poor William for I shall be in heaven, and trust you will come to me, and make my darlings always look for me there.”

Guided by Faith

Just as William was certain that he would be reunited with Elizabeth and his children after their deaths, I know with certainty that Scott is still present with us. To nonbelievers this may seem delusional, but I have felt his presence at so many critical junctures in my life.

As I left the hospital the morning of Scott’s death, a friend urged, “Stop. Turn around. Look at that glorious sunrise. It is Scott’s gift to you. Think of him at every sunrise.” I do, with great peace. I find a similar peace each Sunday during Mass. I confess that I do not share Elizabeth’s awe for the Real Presence. My comfort comes from the whole of the Mass: the music, the words of Scripture, a homily that hits just the right theme, the fellowship at the greeting of peace.

A friend recently asked why, given so many disagreements I have with the church, I remain Catholic. My answer was simple: “My faith nourishes me.”

Turning Outward

After William’s death, Elizabeth faced the daunting reality of feeding and clothing her children. But she still found time to reach out to others. She wrote Antonio that she “passed half an hour with the sick man who is a Catholic for whom you gave me the dollars—the pleasure of consoling him and conversing with the poor honest family he lives with recompensed the trouble of my walk tenfold.”

Throughout her life, Elizabeth kept vigil at the bedsides of the many dying friends and relatives who requested her as a comforter at the end of their lives.

Always a mother to her children first, she became “mother” to the children at her school in Emmitsburg, Md., the wealthy and the poor learning side by side. Through the Sisters of Charity, “Mother Seton” would leave a legacy of her commitment to service.

The 1812 regulations for the Order make her priorities clear: “One of their chief employments being to assist the sick poor, they shall fulfill this duty with every possible care and affection, recollecting that it is not so much upon them as on Jesus Christ that they bestow their services.”

Alone, but Not Lonely

As my daughters marry and start their own families, I am faced with the challenge of the empty nest, for which Scott and I had so longed. Sadly, Robert Browning’s poetic invitation to “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be” eluded us in Scott’s dying so young.

But as a widow in my now-empty nest, I have the luxury of time to pursue causes I believe in. I can offer college classes that get me home late after a nighttime symphony, or I can accompany students to New York to learn about the life of Elizabeth Seton and the work of the United Nations. I can deliver meals to Habitat for Humanity workers or knock on doors to promote political candidates whose views mirror my commitment to social justice.

I cannot change the reality of Scott’s death. As Rabbi Harold Kushner writes, “In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.”

Elizabeth Seton chose not to rail at God over William’s death. Her response was to turn this tragedy on its head, using her energy to refashion her life in ways she had never envisioned. Each widow must find her own way out of grief, but Elizabeth offers a model—a promise of hope—that though the sadness will never leave, it will subside, making way for new joys and meaning.

Sidebar: Tips for Healing

When a spouse dies, words are sometimes less important than others’ caring embraces. By doing some figurative “embracing” of their own, widows and widowers can begin to move from hurting to healing.

Embrace your sadness. Cry. Cry alone. Cry with friends. If you get stung by a bee, your natural reaction is to cry. The sting over the loss of a loved one is far greater. Let it out. Don’t be embarrassed to cry around friends.

Embrace your memories. Pray for your loved one, by name, on special occasions. View photos or home videos to remind you of those years together. Get tickets for you and your children when his or her favorite musician books a concert near you. Re-watch his or her favorite movies and don’t be afraid to cry.

Embrace your “now.” The past is over. The future is not yet yours. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us: “Our appointment with life is in the present moment. If we do not have peace and joy now, when will we have peace and joy?”

We all owe a great debt to St. Francis of Assisi and to his Canticle of the Creatures for leading us to the conviction that all brother and sister creatures make up one family under God’s loving care.

As a Franciscan friar, I am very familiar with the stories of St. Francis of Assisi and animals. Many of you no doubt are familiar with the story of this brown-robed friar preaching to the birds. Or maybe that of his releasing Brother Rabbit from a trap, or letting Sister Raven serve as his “alarm clock” to awaken him for early morning prayers.

Historians have credited Francis with composing the first great poem in Italian—a poem or hymn that bears the title The Canticle of Brother Sun (also known as The Canticle of the Creatures). In this hymn Francis invites all his brother and sister creatures—whether minerals, plants or animals—to praise their Creator. These creatures include “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon,” “Brother Fire” and “Sister Water,” as well as “Sister Earth our Mother,” with all her various fruits and colored flowers.

For years, I have asked myself why: Why did Francis do this? Deep down, I wondered, what intuition prompted Francis to address all creatures as “brothers” and “sisters”? Over 30 years ago, I concluded that Francis came to the conviction that all creatures form one family of creation. Indeed, this is the view of Francis immortalized in his Canticle of Brother Sun.

As Murray Bodo, OFM, observes regarding this canticle, “St. Francis once said to a brother who had been a famous troubadour, ‘Brother Pacifico, when you preach, go and sing to the people The Canticle of the Creatures, saying that we are God’s minstrels, and as our fee for this performance, we want you to live in true penitence’” (Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis).

We will meditate on Francis’ Canticle in segments. Although the Canticle is a very spontaneous poem or prayer flowing from the heart of Francis, it falls into distinguishable segments. The first six lines are devoted to God alone, our Creator, whose exalted status deserves first place in our reverence and high praise. And so we do well to imitate Francis by letting ourselves be swept up into giving “all praise” and “all glory” and “all honor” to our most high Lord.

Canticle of Brother Sun

Most high, all-powerful, all good, Lord
All praise is yours, all glory, all honor
And all blessing.
To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy
To pronounce your name.

Looking ahead at the Canticle’s next 19 lines, we focus on the various “brother” and “sister” creatures God has made. We praise God for their beauty and preciousness and for the way they reflect God’s own goodness. It is fitting therefore that we embrace these creatures as brothers and sisters and as members of the same family to which you and I belong. As Fr. Murray affirms in Poetry as Prayer, St. Francis “did not turn away from creatures; he became one with them in a fraternal relationship that resisted domination.” It is with great joy and reverence therefore that we warmly accept these creatures and praise God with them and through them.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them, bright
And precious and fair.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all the weather’s moods,
By which you cherish all that you have made.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
Through whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how merry! Full of power and strength.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our Mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
Various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

On Pardon and Peace

Some time after Francis wrote and joyfully sang the original lines of the Canticle, he composed the following four lines to help resolve a dispute that had arisen between the mayor of Assisi and the bishop. Francis asked a friar to sing these lines in the presence of the two men so they might be reconciled. And, indeed, a reconciliation did take place. The lines were added later to the original parts of the Canticle presented above. These words also inspire us in our day to seek reconciliation with one another out of love for God. They will also lead us to peace—and to great blessings from the Most High.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon
For love of you; through those who endure
Sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
By you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Sister Death

Finally, not many days before Francis saw his own death approaching, he added the following seven lines to his great Canticle of the Creatures.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,
From whose embrace no mortal can escape.
How dreadful for those who die in sin!
How lovely for those found in Your Most Holy Will.
The second death can do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks,
And serve him with great humility.

Throughout this canticle, we have seen how Francis saw God’s goodness, radiance and beauty in all creatures. He saw them indeed as benevolent friends, as brothers and sisters—as family. And now even the reality of death itself becomes “Sister Death” for Francis, and thus takes on friendly and even “sisterly” aspects. For who of us is afraid of our sister? Indeed, under usual circumstances we are not afraid of our sister. And so, neither does Francis see this sister as threatening to him. In fact, according to Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of the saint, Francis went “joyfully to meet [death]” and “invited it to make its lodging with him. ‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘my sister death!’” (See Celano 2, CXLIII, 217.)

Conclusion

We all owe a great debt to St. Francis of Assisi and to his Canticle of the Creatures for leading us to the conviction that all brother and sister creatures make up one family under God’s loving care! May all these wonderful creatures continue to lift our hearts upward to God in this glorious prayer of praise.

Television host, sports junkie, husband, father—all of these could describe this popular ESPN personality. His Catholic faith keeps him grounded.

Five days a week on ESPN, Tony Reali hosts Around the Horn, a 30-minute television show viewed by a half million sports lovers. This popular program accentuates his quirky talents as puppeteer and lion tamer, someone with an almost supernatural ability to mute any of the sportswriters or sportscasters on the four screens in front of him with the push of a button.

“I can talk for hours about giving voice to people, and, oddly, my job is to silence people with a mute button,” says Reali, 39, laughing. “But I trust they know it’s done with a wink.”

Anthony Joseph Paul “Tony” Reali—as he often introduces himself on Around the Horn, as a tribute to the times growing up when his parents wanted him to “get over here” right now—can get serious when it comes to communicating who he is and what is important in his life.

For the past 16 years, Reali has worn ashes on his forehead on Ash Wednesday while on the air at ESPN. It wasn’t noticeable at first, when Reali was the 60-second, end-of-show “fact-checker” and “stat boy” on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, which features sportswriters Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon bantering about the day’s sports topics—and sometimes making errors.

Quiet Show of Faith

As a Staten Island-born sports junkie who grew up in Marlboro, New Jersey, and attended Fordham University in the Bronx, hoping one day to follow in the footsteps of Fordham broadcasting alums Vin Scully, Mike Breen, Bob Papa, and Michael Kay, Reali reveled in lightheartedly correcting his more famous superiors.

Because of his increased air time after becoming the host of Around the Horn, Reali’s ashes became far more noticeable. Reali says his bosses at ESPN had no reservations.

“I never asked if I could do it; I expected that I could do it,” Reali says. “That, eventually, comes from a place of privilege, but it also comes from a place of acceptance. I knew Tony and Mike and my producers would accept me. But I never wanted to be ‘the story’ either.”

The story moved to center stage in March 2017 when Reali wrote a guest column for the Washington Post to explain why he wears ashes on TV on Ash Wednesday. As someone with a keen sense of the power of social media to build up and tear down, Reali knew he was making himself a target to those disturbed by public manifestations of religion.

Reali felt the time was right to explain his public expression of religious devotion. His wife, Samiya, who grew up the daughter of a Muslim mother and a Southern Baptist father, was not immune to the growing threats to religious freedom across the world. At the time of President Donald Trump’s first efforts to ban travel to the United States from several Muslim countries, Samiya was away on business in Africa.

“Although she’s not a practicing Muslim and she is a US citizen, on her passport it says, ‘Country of Birth: Morocco,'” Reali says. “All this was echoing in my head as I was doing something publicly like wearing ashes, and I was, for the most part, being praised.”

Reali was used to receiving the occasional anonymous rants on Twitter from fans who were upset that he took the “wrong” side in a sports debate.

“I was already up to speed with fans who might be upset when you say something about their team,” Reali says. “That, of course, is usually innocuous.”

His Washington Post column (titled “I’ve Worn Ash on My Head on ESPN for 16 Years. This Year Was Different.”) garnered more than 700 comments, skewed slightly in praise of his decision. As with any story on a secular outlet involving religion, the anti-Church trolls came out in force.

Marlowe53 wrote: “I don’t mind you wearing ashes. I do mind you promoting an organization that denigrates women at every level. How dare they? How dare you?”

1Ronald penned: “Hey, Tony. Most people have enough self-esteem, enough self-resolve, that they don’t trek across town to be defiled in the name of religion.”

IIIntgrty added: “Get off your preachy, cringy, victim soapbox!”

Others analyzed the issue in the light of their own experiences with the Catholic Church.

Jacki Cepe Lake wrote: “I remember my Catholic school days and feeling the temptation to wipe off my ashes after I walked away from campus. I didn’t want to feel any more ‘different’ than I already did during those awkward years. On Wednesday, seeing you on TV, the word brave came to mind.”

Commentator Ted David, who described himself as a “nonpracticing Jew,” wrote: “I have no personal use for religion, but respect those who do. And I have great respect for Catholics like you who wear their ashes proudly.”

Reali says some of the interesting responses he has received over the years of his ash wearing have been from people who have no idea what the practice means and are simply inquisitive. He has had discussions with priests about his decision to wear ashes on TV, and one piece of advice about potential criticism has stuck with him: “The idea we landed on was that anybody who thought I was being overly pious was trying to pick a fight. The ashes, to me, are an acknowledgment of our sins. They are an acknowledgment of our place in the world: ‘From ashes you have come and will go again.’ I’m still working it out in my head.”

There is no sugarcoating the facts, Reali says, that the Church, through its history, has sinned. The sexual abuse of minors has been a vile side of its history that must be owned.

“Initially, I wasn’t really considering that people would attach me to pedophilia, to the worst things that we have had in our religion,” Reali says. “The crimes, the cover-ups. Those are despicable. There is no mincing of those words. I’m not trying to defend anything in that regard. I am trying to show that a middle-aged person can be proud of his faith.”

A Knight in Service

Reali was grounded in his Catholic faith by his parents, Joe and Madelyn, who took their four children to Mass each Sunday at St. Gabriel Church in Marlboro, New Jersey. His father, a former tax attorney with MetLife, was coaxed out of retirement by American International Group (AIG) to clean up a historic bailout.

“When it was AIG’s job after the bailout to pay back everything, who was the straightest arrow in the world? Joe Reali’s the straightest arrow in the world,” Reali says. “When you need somebody to get clean, call Joe Reali.”

Although Reali was never an altar server, as a teenager he became chief squire for the New Jersey Columbian Squires (the official youth organization of the Knights of Columbus), “which sounds very impressive,” he says. “Technically, I guess I am still a knight. Once a knight, always a knight, right? I know I’m still on a list somewhere.”

At Fordham, where he studied broadcast journalism, Reali got busted playing “hall sports” by Sister Rose, the resident assistant, and was coaxed into helping out as a sacristan his last two years at Fordham University Church.

He discovered a few things of interest about the church, which opened its doors in 1845: The six French-made, stained-glass windows of Sts. Peter, Paul, and the four evangelists were originally slated to be installed in Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street in New York, but subsequently were gifted to Fordham because they were the wrong size; also, the church’s bells were the subject of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Bells.”

“Poe was living in the Bronx, and those were the ‘bells, bells, bells’ he heard when writing the poem,” Reali says. “I know all this useless information about sports and great churches.”

One of Reali’s jobs on muggy days was opening the windows using a 12-foot pole with a hook.

“I was on my tippy-toes, and I recall one year putting the pole right through a corner of a window—and I had to tell Sister Rose,” he says. “We had to have a new piece made. So that was my good service as sacristan.”

Two Dreams Realized

Reali says the Catholic faith of his youth and young adulthood “always made sense to me.” That faith was tested during the years when he and Samiya struggled to conceive. Their daughter, Francesca Zahra Reali, was born in 2014.

“The name Francesca just rolls off the tongue,” Reali says with a laugh. “You can hear the music in it. You can taste the lasagna in it.”

Being a dad, he says, “is everything I dreamed of and more, and we’re hopeful to have more children, God willing. I love being the father of a girl—a little girl’s daddy. She’s the one calling the shots. I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to be a sportscaster, and I’m happy to say I’m both.” (It seems God has been listening to Tony’s prayers since, as of this writing, the Realis are expecting twins this summer!)

As wonderful as her arrival has been, Reali openly admits his “relentlessly optimistic” persona displayed daily at ESPN masks his struggles with anxiety. He has turned to his faith, the counsel of priests, and professional help.

“I’m a high-strung person,” Reali says. “I draw a comparison to being a duck. Above the water, I’m as cool as a cucumber, sitting in the [studio] chair. Underneath the water, I’m paddling very hard. On TV, I was trying to project that every day was the greatest day ever because the viewer is watching the show for entertainment purposes, and my job is to entertain.”

The anxiety attacks became so pronounced when Samiya was out of the country and Reali was alone with Francesca that his priest suggested he seek professional help.

“It’s been one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Reali says. “That is maybe another instance that could rock somebody’s faith—when you’re experiencing mental strain—but the professional help and my faith got me through all that. I think all of us need to hear that. It’s OK not to be OK, and your faith can get you through those moments. I went from trying to have the greatest day ever to trying to have the ‘realest’ day ever.”

A Heart for the Homeless

When Reali lived in Washington, DC, while taping Pardon the Interruption, he landed inside St. Augustine Church in northwest DC, the founding church of the city’s African American Catholics. He was struck by the vibrant liturgy, the joyful music, and especially the homilies that spoke to real-life issues.

When Trayvon Martin, 17, was shot and killed in 2012 in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, Reali recalls the homily in which the priest compared Martin’s hoodie with the “hoodie” worn by Franciscan priests.

“He just drew the analogy out, and I just remember thinking, Really? It was like simpatico,” Reali says. “Our Church is not just about the two weeks of the year when the missionaries come and how can we support the building of a church where a church needs to be built—or food needs to be put on the table. Food needs to be put on the table five blocks outside of this parish right now.”

Since moving to New York, Reali attends the Franciscan-staffed Shrine Church of St. Anthony of Padua in Soho. While it is known to movie buffs as the backdrop for the San Gennaro feast in The Godfather: Part II, and as the church where Cher, in Moonstruck, enters the confessional, Reali says his namesake church resonates with him because of its concern for the poor.

A group called the JoyJ Initiative regularly prepares sandwiches and comfort items for the homeless throughout the city.

“We go to some of the great parks of New York City—Washington Square Park and Tompkins Park—and we go to Penn Station and Grand Central Station,” Reali says. “For me, it’s faith and works, and it’s not just about preparing that bag for the homeless and giving them food and even gloves and hats. The outreach there is those conversations. That’s what we all need. We need to be part of our community. They are us—our homeless.”

Opening (and Breaking) Windows

In a way, just as St. John XXIII opened the windows of the Church during the Second Vatican Council, Reali believes Pope Francis is singing from the same sheet music.

“I believe Pope Francis is remodeling the windows completely,” Reali says.”And they have a great potential to be beautiful windows—with a great view of the world and of all the people in the world. He’s constantly thinking about how we’re treating other people and lifting up other people and listening to other people.”

Just don’t hand Reali a 12-foot pole with a hook inside Fordham University Church and ask him to let the fresh air in.

“When I did,” he says, “I broke a window.”

A sleepless night at a homeless shelter becomes a wake-up call for this volunteer.

1:25 a.m.

I am getting out of the shower, but I feel so tired I want to go back to bed. Why did I volunteer for this? I think of how Jesus came back from the garden at Gethsemane and found the three apostles asleep: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41).

1:39 a.m.

The sky is so clear. There seem to be more stars than usual. You have to get up at a very strange time to see this kind of beauty.

1:40 a.m.

I’m in my car for the 10-minute drive to the church, thinking about what I am going to do this night. I think about the corporal works of mercy. Which one is this? Oh, yeah: “Shelter the homeless.”

1:45 a.m.

I walk into the activities center. Cleo and Chris are there. My teammate, Nancy, and I will replace them at 2 a.m. A man named Gerald sits with them at a table. He must have insomnia. They are talking. Well, he is doing most of the talking, and they are listening. His two sons are in classroom 4, sleeping. I catch bits and pieces of the discussion: He walks with the help of a cane; he has a bullet lodged in his back near his spine; he was a security officer, but something had gone wrong one night; now he produces rap and other types of music for a church group. I think that it must be very difficult to raise two boys when you have no home to go to and they have to sleep in a different place each night. How do they get to school? Do they even go to school?

2:00 a.m.

I talk with Nancy for a while; there’s nothing else to do. We go through the usual: kids, jobs, spouses, religion. While we talk, we hear the occasional cough from one of the rooms down the hall. Not everyone is having a restful sleep.

We discuss a feeling we share because of the circumstances of this night. We live in one of the richest countries in the world. Yet right outside our door the homeless and poor are sleeping. We feel thankful to God for our life situation. His grace alone has kept us from being in the same spot as the ones we care for tonight.

We feel guilty, however, for the same reason. There was absolutely nothing we did to deserve it. We are no more special to God than those sleeping on the floor in the classrooms. Why did he choose us to be the lucky ones? I remember the beatitudes from Mass a few weeks ago. Wait a minute, I think. They are the lucky ones! Blessed are the poor (in spirit) and the meek—they shall inherit the earth. I am not sure I would like to be as lucky as they are. I ponder that God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s values are not our values. I pray that I can think more like God and value more of the things he values. I still have a lot to learn.

3:00 a.m.

Nancy brought some paperwork from home. She is working on it when we hear a commotion down the hall. I go to investigate. One classroom door is open. The card on the wall says there are two women inside. All is quiet there. I notice a dull light by the electrical outlet below the chalkboard where a cell phone is charging. As I walk back to our room, I hear the faint noise of music coming from another room: Someone is listening to tunes. I wonder how well I would sleep each night if I had to live like this. Probably not well—not well at all.

4:00 a.m.

I go to the kitchen and eat some cherry pie they left for us. It’s cold, but I don’t think to put it in the microwave. I find my wife’s name, Peggy, on the sign-in sheet. She baked five meat loaves earlier today for their supper. She makes great meat loaf, so they ate well today. I think to myself, The homeless were very lucky at dinner.

4:20 a.m.

More coughing comes from one of the rooms. A man comes down the hall and goes out the door. He smokes a cigarette. That is the second time for him since I got here.

4:45 a.m.

I make the rounds again. No trouble. I go outside to look at the stars a second time.

5:00 a.m.

I make my first wake-up call to two men in classroom 10. It’s still dark outside. They both have jobs. I always thought the homeless did not have jobs. If they had a job, why would they be homeless? I guess having a job does not mean you can afford a roof over your head. Tonight that seems like an injustice to me. People with jobs deserve a place they can call their own to sleep at night. I have one; why shouldn’t they?

Is that why some people are trying to raise the minimum wage? I always supported the free-market capitalist economy: Let the efficient labor market decide how much people get paid. Is that right? Is that just? I’m not so sure now, spending this night with the homeless.

5:30 a.m.

We are waking up more people now—a family with three little children. Are they going to school today? How will they get there? After school they won’t go home to a snack. I tear up at the thought. Why can’t I fix this? That is what I do at work: I fix problems. Here I don’t know how to do it.

5:45 a.m.

A small boy is crying in the hall. He can’t be more than 3 or 4. Daniel, who got up earlier, is a tall, older man with a noticeable limp. He says, “Hi, little one!” and holds the boy’s hand as they walk off. I am struck by the stark contrast between the two. Daniel: so tall, old, so wise. The boy: so small, young, reaching up so high to clasp the old man’s extended hand.

A woman stands outside the door to the building entrance. She wears a business suit. She must have a good job, so why is she here? Later we see her in the kitchen reading a business book. One of the two volunteers asks her if she is a teacher. She blushes a bit. I chime in that she looks like a businesswoman. She is going to an interview for a marketing job. She tells us the book is from an online course she is taking to earn her degree. I pray in my heart to the Father that she gets the job. Who would think she was homeless? She looks as if she could walk into my office and run one of my meetings.

This group acts like a family—like my family. They know each other. They are concerned for one another. The family: I think it is part of the natural law. It’s planted in our hearts by God. We don’t have to learn what a family is; it just forms naturally. It just is. I see the proof right here. I feel good thinking that here is a family—though it is different in many ways than mine.

I learned something tonight. As I make my way around town, buy my groceries, go to the restaurant or the coffee shop, I am likely coming in contact with people just like these: people who have no home, but are trying to make a better life for themselves. They are a family, just like mine. They are part of my family, and I bear a responsibility for taking care of them. Jesus said that love is acts, that you have to do something when you love. I need to make more acts of love for my extended family—the poor, the weak, the sick. I can do this.

6:05 a.m.

Less than an hour to go. I feel as if I am in the way as they go about their business, washing in the sinks, getting their coffee and breakfast. Lunch bags are on a table at the exit for them to take as they leave. Volunteers will drive some to work. Others will simply walk away for the day. I have a car—maybe I can take someone somewhere when I leave. I’d like to help.

6:30 a.m.

I’ve finished my wake-up calls, so I get to go home early. I’ll sleep for a couple of hours, then go in to work. As I turn into my subdivision, I see a full moon nearing the western horizon; the sun is soon to rise in the east. The moon is so big and bright, it reminds me of God’s love, so big and so bright. He will make all things right in the end. That thought brings me much peace.

On Ash Wednesday at St. Peter’s in the Loop in the heart of Chicago, 20,000 people will begin their Lenten journey.

On Ash Wednesday, Catholics show their stuff. It’s not the fancy jewelry you might see in a night on the town. It’s the ash of penitence, typically received at church, smudged onto our foreheads, faith on display as we walk about. In few places will you see a greater outpouring of public witness than at the Franciscans’ St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Chicago, known to the locals as “St. Peter’s in the Loop.”

Think we’re exaggerating? “We estimate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 people come through the doors,” says Kurt Hartrich, OFM, the pastor. The “we” he refers to are 17 friars who staff the church every day, hearing confessions and leading liturgies. “On Ash Wednesday,” says Father Kurt, “the lobby is absolutely chaotic.” At any given moment, four to six friars are distributing ashes in the downstairs auditorium, while 12 Masses (short ones!) are being celebrated throughout the day, and, he adds, “We hear confessions all day.” Ushers staff the doors, pointing people up or down the Minnesota-marble stairs.

The Loop is so much a part of Chicago’s identity that even the 26-ton marble crucifix towering over the church entrance is titled “Christ of the Loop.” For the unfamiliar, the Loop is the city’s core. An elevated commuter train track (the “L”) has encircled the downtown business district since the 1890s. Today it transports an estimated 74,000 commuters into, out of, and around the Loop each business day.

Decades back, when the friars were looking to move Old St. Peter’s from an abandoned neighborhood to a place in the heart of the city, they chose the site of a former movie theatre. The site, it turns out, is only a few blocks from the original St. Peter’s, founded in 1863, which had been literally rolled across town to serve the South Loop neighborhood and thrived there till the neighborhood declined.

“Technically, it’s not a parish,” says Father Kurt, unlike St. Peter’s previous location. It’s a service church, he says. One thinks of much smaller service churches, such as airport chapels and the like. St. Peter’s looks every bit the large downtown parish. Yet, “we have no official registered parishioners. We have no parish directory, and we don’t send out envelopes. The whole mission of this place was to serve the people who do not live downtown, but who did come into downtown all the time to work and shop.”

There are some regulars, though, more so as new, traditionally suburban populations move into the Loop. But those are the only visitors the friars come to know. Most of the traffic are people on the move downtown.

Maybe that’s why it’s such a popular location on Ash Wednesday. It’s everyone’s church.

Ash Wednesday Rush

“In some ways it’s like any other parish, except bigger,” explains Father Kurt, speaking of Ash Wednesday. And even with the multitude of priest and brother friars, some of the distributors are laypeople. “We don’t do it during Masses because there isn’t enough time,” he says, explaining the Masses are at 6, 6:45, and so on. Downstairs, ash distribution starts at 6 a.m. and goes for the next 13 hours, to accommodate everyone’s workday.

“Some people don’t go to Mass; they just go directly downstairs to get their ashes.” And some head for confession first. “So we have people in the lobby,” says Father Kurt, “three or four people throughout the whole day, to direct people according to what they really want. It’s like a soup market, a department store, or Target. You come in and want to get something, but you don’t know exactly where it is. You have greeters, you know,” he says, chuckling at the comparison.

Something about Ash Wednesday, about wearing a deep reminder of our own mortality, brings people in from everywhere. “Even though we don’t have time to ask people, like, ‘What is your background?’ I am sure many non-Catholics come.” And that’s fine with the Catholic Church. The ashes are a sacramental, a practice of the faithful that can happen anywhere, even in the home.

Some Churches, noticeably in the Protestant community, take ashes out into the community, at L stops and the like. But that doesn’t appeal to Father Kurt, who thinks like the pastor of any busy church: “Number one, we don’t have time.” His second reason has more to do with the way a community interacts at church. “It’s just like, you know, the Catholic Church basically says if you are going to get married, you are supposed to get married in a church, not on a beach type of thing.” Speaking as perhaps most pastors would, he sees the same on Ash Wednesday. His desire is that people come to the heart of the church to receive the sacramental ashes. “Sacramentals deserve a sacred space,” he says. “We wouldn’t do the L stop.”

With that in mind, St. Peter’s decorates the downstairs auditorium to give it a Lenten feel. “We also have music,” he says. “It could get to be rather raucous—well, not raucous, that’s too strong. But you get all kinds of people there, and they are waiting. They could be talking to other people. We ask people to please, when you come and are waiting for your ashes, to please be silent and reflective. It’s really quiet and respectful and sacred.”

Ash Wednesday Everywhere

What’s the fascination with ashes? “I think it’s a way of trying to reflect on the whole idea that we are not immortal,” says Father Kurt. “We are mortal. We are people who are at some point going to die and meet our maker. So it really does touch the heart of who we are.”

Then there’s the identity, or even the evangelization part. “Somebody might see the ashes and think, Oh, yeah, I’ve got to do that too,” observes Father Kurt. Catholics really aren’t as comfortable as some Christians about announcing their faith to strangers. Ash Wednesday cuts through that hesitancy: “It’s symbolic but it’s still very, very real that I am a Christian, I am not going to say Catholic, but I am a Christian, and this is the beginning of a period of penance. I want other people to know that I take this seriously. Once people get their ashes, they are more willing to have others notice it and they make a statement, so to speak.”

Standing and distributing ashes, hearing confessions, and celebrating Eucharist are real work. “It’s a very tiring day, oh boy,” Father Kurt admits. “I have to say, when the day is done, you do wonder what is the real effect,” he says, in a reflective moment. “You never know.” Will the penitents really focus for all of Lent and make the season one of renewal? Will people really follow the directive of Lent to pray and seek repentance for their sins? “Probably the answer is, if you could ask, some will and some won’t.” That’s the pastoral reality of anyone sharing the good news of our faith.

“I will say this,” Father Kurt offers. “It really is a humbling experience to just be part of this, to see so many people. You see some families and some very elderly people who have made their way downtown for whatever the reason, and come through. They are having a hard time walking even, but, by gosh, they are here.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, is a reminder to wake up and pay attention.

“My hope is that by what they have done, no matter what their motivation might be, that somehow or another having come to get ashes, having come to St. Peter’s, they’ve been reminded of the importance that in the midst of a secular life we are also to work out our salvation. This is one way we do that.” He also hopes that the day is about more than ashes; it will be about persevering in a renewed participation in the life of the Church throughout all of Lent.

That’s the point of the newer formula for the distribution of ashes, “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” though even the older formula, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is a reminder to wake up and pay attention.

Ministers distributing ashes have the option to use either one, explains Father Kurt. “A lot of the people will use both of them. They have hour-long shifts.” They switch formulas to make sure things don’t get too routine, he explains.

Every once in a while, he says, “If you’re using the one of ‘return to the Gospel,’ [a penitent] will say, ‘No, no. I want the one about dust.’ Then you do it.”

It’s all in a long day’s work.

Sidebar: Ashes around the World

In most countries, ashes are commonly the burnt remains of last year’s palms from Palm Sunday processions. In some parishes, you’ll see distributors pouring a small amount of ashes on the penitent’s head. But more frequently you’ll see the distributor dip his or her thumb in a dish of ashes and inscribe a cross on the forehead.

Did you know there are other customs worldwide? Some are for Ash Wednesday, others for the day before (Shrove Tuesday). In Iceland, for example, traditionally children pin small bags of ashes on the back of some unsuspecting person. Nowadays it’s more common for children to dress in costumes and sing for treats, much like our Halloween. Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Tuesday or Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), marks a time when restricted food is finished off before the Lenten fast begins. In places that celebrate carnival, ending at midnight Tuesday, some penitents might show up the next day a bit hungover.

In Ashford, Derbyshire, England, there is the two-day, no-holds-barred Royal Shrovetide football (soccer) game among a large crowd on Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, the goal of which is to get the ball to one goal or the other at either end of the three-mile-wide town. In southern Germany, members of the money-laundering guild wash their money and wallets in a fountain at the conclusion of Shrove Tuesday, a sign of Lenten readiness. Filipinos gather on Ash Wednesday, after receiving ashes, to have their medals blessed by clergy.

Sidebar: Rules of Fasting and Abstinence

From the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.

For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onward.

Members of the Eastern Catholic Churches are to observe the particular law of their own sui iuris Church.

An aside from the bishops: “Indulging in the lavish buffet at your favorite seafood place sort of misses the point.”

And another: “CRS Rice Bowl is one way Catholics can enhance their Lenten fasting practice by giving up meals and donating the cost of those meals to Catholic Relief Services, in order to help those who do not have enough to eat.”