“Yet even now,” says God,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping,
and with mourning; and rend your
hearts and not your garments.”
Return to your God, for God
is gracious and merciful, slow
to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love, and repents of evil.”

Remember,
human, that you are dust, and to dust you will return.

Call To Worship

Put on sackcloth and lament
COME, PASS THE NIGHT IN SACKCLOTH
YOU MINISTERS OF MY GOD!
Sanctify a Fast, Call a solemn assembly.
GATHER THE ELDERS AND ALL THE INHABITANTS OF THE LAND
TO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD YOUR GOD AND CRY OUT TO THE LORD.

*Opening Hymn No. 334 “Come, Ye Sinners” vs. 1, 3, 4

Prayer of Confession

Let us pray.

Most holy and merciful God:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints in
heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you
with all our heart, and mind, and strength.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We have not forgiven others
as we have been forgiven.
Have mercy on us, O God.

We have been deaf to your call
to serve as Christ served us.
We have not been true
to the mind of Christ.
We have grieved your Holy Spirit.
Have mercy on us, O God.

We confess to you, O God,
all our past unfaithfulness.
The pride, hypocrisy, and impatience in our lives.
We confess to you, O God.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways
and our exploitation of other people.
We confess to you, O God.

Our anger at our own frustration
and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, O God.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts
and our dishonesty in our daily life and work,
We confess to you, O God.

Our negligence in prayer and worship
and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,
We confess to you, O God.

Accept our repentance, O God,
for the wrongs we have done.
For our neglect of human need and suffering
and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, O God.

For all false judgments,
for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors,
and for our prejudice and contempt
toward those who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, O God.

For our waste and pollution of your creation
and our lack of concern for those who come after us,
Accept our repentance, O God.

Restore us, O God,
and let your anger depart from us.
Favorably hear us, O God, for your mercy is great.
Amen.

United Church of Christ, Book of Worship

A selection of poems and verses

Scripture Text (New American Bible)
Click here for readings from the public domain
World English Bible

Meditation

* Hymn “Dust and Ashes”

The Blessing and Distribution of the Ashes

Communal Closing Prayer (by Edward Hays)

Come, O Life-giving Creator,
            and rattle the door latch
            of my slumbering heart.
Awaken me as you breathe upon
            a winter-wrapped earth,
            gently calling to life virgin Spring.

Awaken in these fortified days
            of Lenten prayer and discipline
            my youthful dream of holiness.
Call me forth from the prison camp
            of my numerous past defeats
            and my narrow patterns of being
            to make my ordinary life extra-ordinarily alive,
            through the passion of my love.

Show to me during these Lenten days
            how to take the daily things of life
            and by submerging them in the sacred,
            to infuse them with a great love
            for you, O God, and for others.
Guide me to perform simple acts of love and prayer,
            the real works of reform and renewal
            of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.

O Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ,
            help me not to waste
            these precious Lenten days
            of my soul's spiritual springtime.

*Hymn “Ashes”
Benediction

Lord of the waters, unto thee I call.
    I that am weed upon the waters borne,
        And by the waters torn,
Tossed by the waters, at thy feet I fall.
    I am.like a lonely bird on the housetop.
All day long my enemies taunt me;
    those who deride me use my name for a curse.
For I eat ashes like bread,
    and mingle tears with my drink,
because of your indignation and anger;
    for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.
My days are like an evening shadow;
    I wither away like grass.
But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
    your name endures to all generations.
You will rise up and have compassion on Zion,
    for it is time to favor it;
    the appointed time has come.
For your servants hold its stones dear,
    and have pity on its dust.

Psalm 102 :1

YOU thumbed grit
into my furrowed brow,
marking me
with the sign of mortality,
the dust of last year’s palms.
The cross you traced
seared, smudged skin,
and I recalled
other ashes
etched
into my heart
by those who loved too little
or not at all.

Elizabeth-Anne Vanek

The flesh of one so full of hope cries out,
comes pushing now the growing, wintered well
in her womb, wailing songs of the longing
for life and love and gentleness of green
and a springtime sun to be welcoming
for us, to warm us out of these our tombs
to bid us light and peace and graciousness.

So we are signed with earth—with death and birth.

Mary Claire van Orsdal

THE Lord my Creator took me as dust from the earth,
and formed me into a living being,
breathing into me the breath of life.
God honored me,
setting me as ruler upon earth over all things visible,
and made me companion of the angels.
But Satan the deceiver,
using the serpent as instrument,
enticed me by food—
parted me from the glory of God,
and gave me over to the earth and to the lowest depths
    of the earth.
But in compassion, O Savior, call me back again!       

Byzantine Vespers