There were two rituals attached to the winter fire.

One was setting the fire with crushed newspaper, strips of kindling, and pieces of larger wood.

Setting the fire so it lit readily and well was no mean feat.

The second ritual involved disposing of the burnt ashes from the night before.

From memory (and I am going back a few years), the ashes would be scooped into a bucket, taken out, and spread over the vegetable garden.

Why the veggie garden?

Because that is where you were told to dispose of them!

Little did I know that wood ash is an excellent source of lime and potassium for your garden.

Using ashes in the garden also provides many of the trace elements that plants need to thrive.

Wood ash fertiliser is best used either lightly scattered or by first being composted along with the rest of your compost.

This is because wood ash will produce lye and salts if it gets wet.

The lye and salt will not cause problems in small quantities, but in larger amounts, the lye and salt may burn your plants.

So, this is why we have Ash Wednesday.

Ashes are a good fertiliser for your garden, providing trace elements needed for you to thrive.

Like the seed (See Mark 4), they are best scattered and used lightly or sparingly - once a year ought to be sufficient!

Practically speaking, on a liturgical note, the distribution of ashes is not a function reserved to the ordained minister.

Consider a large glass bowl laden with ashes on a stand in the centre of the sanctuary. Individuals are invited to come forward to the ashes and sprinkle themselves with ash however they wish.

In turn, this opens up the possibility of couples approaching together and, in turn, sprinkling each other.

What an extraordinary metaphor of forgiveness.

For those with a disability, invite others to assist them - one of the most frequent phrases in the Gospels reads, "They brought to him,"

Some complain, "What about the mess?"

Our Eucharistic celebration is a recalling of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

I am told it was quite messy, "instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out." (Jn 19: 34).

Another thought to consider: dispense with the celebration of the Eucharist on Ash Wednesday. Rather, focus on the Liturgy of the Ashes.

A final thought: those who regularly minister to the sick in their home through the Liturgy of Communion take with them a container with the blessed ashes and celebrate with those housebound a Liturgy of the Ashes.

Being housebound does not dismiss you from the Eucharistic community.

• Gerard Whiteford is the Marist priest, retreat facilitator, and spiritual companion for 35 years.
• First published at Rest a While.

This follows on the recent statement the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about cremation and the scattering of ashes.

"The loss of a loved one is a significant time for every family. It is a time when we rightly give thanks for the life of our loved ones but it is also the time for us to look forward," say the Bishops in their statement.

"This is why our Catholic celebration of the funeral liturgies leads people into the death and resurrection of the Lord, the mystery that most illuminates the Christian meaning of death."

The Bishops ask that, when cremation is chosen, the ashes of the loved one be laid to rest in a wahi tapu, a sacred place, such as at a cemetery, or a columbarium, church or surrounding area that has been blessed and set aside for this purpose.

"The place of rest then becomes a wonderful sign of the promise the risen Lord makes to us of being reunited with our loved one and with Jesus in glory," they say.

"The place of rest also ensures an appropriate and sacred place for pilgrimage for loved ones and future generations to visit and pay respect to their forebears and tipuna, knowing with certainty that this is the place of rest for their earthly remains as they await the great day of resurrection."

The Bishops have included in their statement the prayer recited for blessing a grave or place for internment of ashes.

Read the Bishops' Statement

Source

• Supplied
• Image: skylawnmemorialparksanmateo.com

Under the original proposal for the Cemeteries and Crematoria Bylaw, city residents would have had to get written permission to scatter their loved ones' ashes. Continue reading

The bag said ‘remains of Helen K. Dapron' and gave her apparent dates of birth and death as October 1930 and June 2010.

Charlie told local television station KSN: ‘Just like that, people leave phone, keys, stuff like that all the time, but I've never seen anything like this.'

Mr Nguyen reviewed security tapes but couldn't identify the customer so posted a note in his shop.

‘I tried to post it on the door, tried to return it to someone, but nobody came forward to claim this bag,' he said. Continue reading

'Cremation is considered as concluded when the urn is deposited in the cemetery,' says the appendix to the new edition of Funeral Rites issued by Italian Episcopal Conference.

'The practice of spreading ashes in the wild or keeping them in places other than the cemetery,' it adds, 'raises many concerns about its full consistency with the Christian faith, especially when they imply pantheistic or naturalist conceptions.' The new book of Funeral Rites was published earlier this month and will come into force in parishes across Italy on Nov. 2, All Souls Day.

Official statistics suggest that around 10 percent of Italians who die are cremated. Since 2001 the Italian government has permitted ashes to be kept at homes in urns or to be scattered on land or sea. Continue reading

Dubbed "Ashes to Go", the church put a contemporary spin on the Ash Wednesday practice of smudging a cross of ashes on people's foreheads by offering the ashes in train stations, coffee shops and other public spots.

The practice began in 2007 when Rev Teresa Danieley decided people could get breakfast to go and asked why they couldn't similarly receive the ashes.

"It started out half-jokingly, but it became something pretty profound," said Daniely.

"The very first person was a cab driver who pulled to a halt and shouted. 'Lent! I completely forgot,'" said Episcopal bishop of Chicago, Jeff Lee.

"People who come to church already get the forgiveness thing," she says. "But people at the train station going into a full day, to all the places where we fail and realize we are not perfect. Now they can start the day with a reminder that that is not the last word," Rev Emily Mellott told USA Today.

Anyone can accept the ashes, although, Mellott says, non-Christians tend not to seek them. Still, she says, "if anyone does, we view it as an act of evangelism, and we make it clear this is a part of the Christian tradition."

The Catholic tradition however states Ashes should be received in a Church and in the context of a liturgical service.

Catholic parish St Peter's in the Loop, run by the Franciscan friars, offered the ashes from 6am - 7pm in the St Clare auditorium.

Sources

• USA Today
• Images:

For nearly 10 years the workers of Ulingan squatter community in Tondo on Manila Bay have earnt a scant income making charcoal.

To most people their working and living conditions would be intolerable.

About 300 families live in huts made from scavenged materials at one end of a 250 meter strip of land tucked in behind a fetid rubbish dump.

They work at the other end of the plot where dozens of charcoal pits belch acrid smoke, the ground is thick coal-black mud and the heat sweltering.

An average day's work yields around 70 pesos ($1.60).

Now, with the site earmarked for development, even that meagre livelihood looks set to be snatched away.

Raffy Texon, of Ecoshield Foundation, based in the Metro Manila financial district of Makati, says he wants everything removed from the site within a month, community organizers say.

The community can do little except appeal to Texon's goodwill to allow them the use of a small portion of the land to continue their work.

"We're not moving out as we have nowhere else to go," says Vic Sucion, head of the community association. "What we are doing now is looking to make alliances with other groups to lobby to be able to stay here

"All we need is a quarter of the whole three-hectare site."

Sucion is one of 38 original squatters who set up the community, known also as Barangay [village] 105, in 2000. Some were scavengers at the notorious Smokey Mountain dumpsite nearby, others came from the provinces seeking a better life in the city, a search that proved elusive.

Health problems are many. Estimates suggest 60 per cent of the population has tuberculosis while other lung problems, due to the ever-present smoke, and water-borne diseases are commonplace.

"My baby is just one year old. He has TB and other lung troubles. I gather nails and scrap metal left behind after the charcoal is made to buy medicine for him," says Janet Ignacio, who has two other children aged seven and 10 and a persistent hacking cough of her own.

Given the chaos that surrounds it, the charcoal production itself is surprisingly well-organized. Timber is stacked neatly in the shallow pits, covered with soil and corrugated iron and burnt slowly. The process takes three days before the finished product is bagged ready for sale.

The market is booming, as rising costs of other fuels drive many back to cooking over charcoal. But the economics for the people of Ulingan are less compelling.

Input costs are high. Timber for one pit costs around 11,000 pesos, the money borrowed from loan sharks at 20 per cent interest a month.

Net income from one pit is around 3,000 a week but this is divided among several families.

That is supplemented by the women and children who sift through the ashes after the charcoal is made looking for nails, old hinges and wire that the sell for scrap. One person can make 20 pesos a day in this way.

"Look at these kids sifting through the ashes for nails like they are prospecting for gold," says the young community organizer Marlon Llovido, a former seminarian who left to start working with the people's organization.

He came to his work in Ulingan through a former Jesuit priest Dennis Murphy.

Llovido has a dream to revolutionize the lives of the charcoal makers if he can persuade Texon to donate some land and can raise a million pesos to introduce new, cleaner more productive charcoal burners.

"I have seen the new technology at a plant in Cavite [a province at the southern end of Manila bay]," he says.

"I want to replicate that here and a businessman has already arranged to have the designs made for me."

The new technology, consisting of concrete igloo-shaped burners, is much cleaner. There are few noxious fumes as the smoke is condensed and the water extracted in the process can also be sold to treatment plants.

"We could achieve the same production as now with just 10 of the new plants," says Llovida. "Each of the new plants can produce 60 sacks of charcoal."

An initial pilot project of three to four burners would cost one million pesos. The fullscale project, three million, around US$69,000. Raising that sort of money is easier said than done, Llovido has discovered.

"We are still looking for funds. We met Cardinal [Gaudencio] Rozales [Archbishop of Manila].

"He likes it and said he would recommend it to the local authorities.

"In fact, we introduced several programs for the poor to the cardinal and he was only interested in the charcoal making, so we are hopeful," says Llovido.

His program would also provide capital for the charcoal-burners to buy their raw materials without falling into debt with the money-lenders but he is far from certain he will be able to raise the necessary funds.

"So much money is stolen through corruption by politicians and the military and so little is needed here," says Llovido.

"Even the church has a very limited engagement with the poor. That's the way I see it."

This article first appeared in ucanews.com.
Republished with permission
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