The one and only time I have ever anointed someone with oil or blessed someone with oil, have ever made the sign of the cross on someone’s forehead with that slick, fragrant, church-like-smell of oil, was in seminary in the first class I took.
Then that student took the oil, turned to the person to their left, dabbed the oil on their thumb and then made the sign of the cross on their forehead and said a blessing.
Again and again, the person to your right said the blessing.
The person to your left received the blessing.
I remember when it was my turn, when I dabbed the oil on my thumb and turned to the woman to my left—she was taller than me and so I had to reach up slightly. I remember making the mark on her forehead.
For the life of me, I don’t remember the words I said.
You know why?
Because the words didn’t matter.
Years later, when I was volunteering at the hospital as a chaplain, I was asked to go visit a woman who had asked for a chaplain. For some reason, the chaplain who was assigned that floor was not available.
When I entered the patient’s room, I found a woman who was clearly very sick, but also in amazing spirits. When I told her I was a chaplain, she was thrilled. She told me that a chaplain had been by the day before and that he had blessed her and anointed her.
She pointed to her forehead. “Can you still see it?” she asked me.
I could not, but I didn’t expect to. Oil is clear. Perhaps there would have been a sheen. I was focused on the fact that, as far as I had been told, I was the first chaplain to visit her. I couldn’t imagine who the chaplain was that might have visited her.
She wanted me to anoint her again.
I explained to her that I did not have oil with me, but I told her what I could do for her. Basically, I would do all the things the chaplain had done the day before, make the sign of the cross on her forehead, say a few verses along the lines of, “May the Lord bless you and keep you. Make the Lord make His face to shine upon you …” and then then I would, if she wanted say another prayer for her, one unique and special to her.
She nodded. She wanted that.
I always, before entering a hospital room, used hand sanitizer, but because I was actually going to touch her and because I wanted her to know how sacred a moment this was, I went to the sink in the room and cleaned my hands again. The hand sanitizer had that typical smell, a sweet awkward perfume combined with the tang of rubbing alcohol. It’s a smell I think all of us associate with hospitals, or the Covid years, or of our own illnesses or attempts to avoid illness.
For me that smell always reminds me of the road trips my family took when I was a kid and the smell of the alcohol wipes my parents gave me whenever we stopped somewhere to eat.
And now, after hundreds of visits to hospital patients, I also associate that smell with prayer and holiness.
When my hands dried, I walked over to the woman’s bed and began, just as I told her I would, with a dry thumb making the sign of the cross on her forehead, with the words of the benediction prayer spilling from my lips.
Her eyes were closed. She breathed deeply, each breath a sigh of contentment.
And then, I took her hands, apologizing for how cold my hands were.
“You know what they say,” I began, “cold hands ….”
“Warm heart,” she finished in a whisper.
And then I prayed.
I have no memory of what I said in the prayer.
The words didn’t matter.
The lack of oil didn’t matter.
What mattered was the presence of the Holy Spirit filling the room.
What mattered was the breath of the spirit that nourished and enriched not just the woman, but me as well.
When you pray for someone, when you pray over them, it’s like sitting in the splash zone at Sea World. The person being prayed for may be the one swimming in the Holy Spirit, but you, the one who prays, you’re going to get splashed with that same spirit.
Today is Ash Wednesday and though the ashes—mixed with a little bit of oil perhaps—the priest puts on foreheads in the sign of the cross are technically neither an anointing nor a blessing like what I just described in the previous two stories, the ashes and the words that go with them—“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”—are something uniquely special.
Receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday is a uniquely sensory experience in the church, involving at least four of the five senses—if you have ever experienced taste on Ash Wednesday, please let me know. But beginning first, visually, you see the ash mixture in the bowl. You watch as the priest spreads her thumb through the ashes. If olive oil was used in the mixture, you might even catch a whiff of it, that subtle sweetness.
And then two things happen at once, the priest traces a cross-like pattern across your forehead. It may be cool or slightly warmed by the priest’s thumb. It will probably be a little gritty. Depending on how dry the mixture is, you may see tiny flecks of ash falling from your forehead in front of your eyes. And as this is happening, the priest will speak those holy words to you.
You might find, during this time, that receiving ashes touches another sense—no not taste, and not that sixth sense we all associate with ESP or psychic abilities, but an unnamed spiritual sense.
It’s the sense that gives you goosebumps when you feel the Holy Spirit moving within you and around you.
It’s the sense that makes you weak-kneed, makes you tremble in reverence and humility.
It’s the sense that tells you just how loved you are and God required nothing of you to deserve His love.
It’s what that woman in the hospital felt, the day after the chaplain had anointed her with oil. She could still feel it, not the oil but the power and love of God.
It’s what my fellow seminarians felt as we blessed each other that day, that we were all equal, that we were all children of God.
In today’s reading from Luke 18:9-14, Jesus stresses the importance of being humble. Humility should never become a contest either. We should never compare ourselves to others. True humility is realizing that everyone is special and that nothing we do can make us more special in God’s eyes.
God does not hold back His love.
Rather He imparts it, bestows it, lavishes us with it unconditionally.
We get the most from God every day.
And the “most of God” has a name.
Jesus.
If you get ashes today, that’s what I want you to focus on, that unnamed spiritual sense that makes your heart quiver and your breath catch because you know that God is present.
And one last thing … that woman in the hospital … I never did find out who the chaplain was that visited her. Hospitals are surprisingly very good at keeping spiritual records of visits. They actually go on your chart. But there was no record of anyone visiting her before I saw her.
Think about that for a minute.
Amen.
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