Showing posts with label #ashtag. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #ashtag. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

#AshTag

I am skipping today's What I Learned Wednesday post to bring you a simple #AshTag picture.

This is a close-up of my ashes. Before you ask, it was done with a stamp by my spiritual director. Apparently Ash Wednesday stamps aren't very common elsewhere but they are in L.A. I've seen at least three parishes use them.

Anyway, I did wear my black mantilla to Mass (didn't seem right to wear my white; my own personal preference) but sadly you can't see it in this picture. Just take my word for it (unless you've seen the less extreme close up of the picture). :D

I hope you all have a fruitful and blessed Lenten season! I'll be blogging every day (or at least that is my goal; I'll explain more tomorrow) so stayed tuned to see how well I do... or how miserably I fail. lol.

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

What I Learned Wednesday #10

Say "hello" to my little ashes... and freckles. lol. Extreme close up done to hide the horrible hair day I had today. Also but I don't wear make-up so you see everything. Oh well, I have nothing to hide. ;)

This will be a short list (compared to the other posts) because I have a couple of things to do before I call it an early night.

The only thing I have to write about today is the shocker that Pope Benedict XVI has handed in his resignation. And cue another ugly crying face in 3... 2... 1... When I heard about it for the first time, I was en route to Disneyland. I checked into Twitter and saw that he was trending. Didn't know why so I asked. Needless to say, I was left speechless. And then I cried. A lot. Silently but ugly crying face was in full effect. In true Emmy fashion, I looked out the window while I cried. I don't like crying in public and there were three other people in the car with me. Thankfully I wasn't driving. As expected, I didn't enjoy my trip to Disneyland but that's okay. None of my mattered at that point. All I knew was that my Pope (I'll get to this in a second) was stepping down and I was upset.

When I say that Pope Benedict XVI is my Pope, I mean that I returned to the Faith a year after he became our Pope. I was "Catholic" (ignorant about my Faith and didn't even think about it) when Bl. Pope John Paul II died. I remember the exact moment in which I read an online "journal" entry by the brother of a young man I was close to, talking about how he was waiting to see the "white smoke" appear to indicate that we Catholics had a new Pope... and how (sparing y'all expletives) he didn't understand why he even cared about it because he wasn't even religious; he was an atheist (if I remember correctly). I remember feeling very offended by what he said, not even knowing that I would revert almost a year and a half later. I always liked Pope Benedict XVI... even when I was away from the Faith. To this day, he's held a special place in my heart and it pains me to see him go.

Despite my own feelings about it, I can understand why he's stepping away. I get it. I don't like it but I understand why he's doing it. I thank him for everything he's done for us in the past eight years. He will always be my Pope. I will always be a card carrying member of the Papa Bene fan club. Would I have Pope Benedict XVI dreams if I weren't? ;)

Anyway, I haven't read everything on what's going to happen, what Papa Bene said (crazy last couple of days), so I can't expand on it. Maybe for next What I Learned Wednesday. To tie this into what I learned about the Faith: I had no idea it had been hundreds of years since the last time a Pope resigned. No clue. To be honest, I didn't even think it was still an option. I just assumed that modern Popes continued until they passed. See? I did learn something new this week. lol.

I'll stop writing before I look even more pathetic than I do now. lol. I still have many years of Catholicism to catch up on so have patience with me. ;)

You know the drill: if you have any prayer requests, send them my way! ;)

I'll write about my Ash Wednesday experience hopefully tomorrow. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Ash Wednesday #AshTag? Yup.

Happy Ash Wednesday, y'all! I know this is late but I've been busy (mostly driving). Yes, those are my ashes on my freckled face. lol. My twitter is set to private and the #ashtag won't work because of it so I decided to just share it on here. :) I personally think Fr. Alexander made it look like a dove. ;)

I went to Mass this morning as usual and was very excited to see the entire church packed(standing room only) at 8 a.m. I'm not even going to criticize those who only attend Mass on Ash Wednesday, Easter, and Christmas because it's not my place to. Anyway, after Mass I received my ashes and have had to keep myself from accidentally touching them. lol.

I had my first "What's that on your forehead?" comment early on (at 10 something in the morning) and I followed that with an explanation on why we did it. The response to my explanation was "well, I'm Christian... we don't do that." Since I'm trying to not start any problems, I just thought "Well, I'm Christian too and I still did it." (Friendly reminder to those who didn't know: Catholics are technically Christian since we believe in Jesus Christ.) I got looks throughout the day but I didn't pay attention. Mom said Christian co-workers made fun of her and other fellow Catholics at work and then spewed hatred... you know, stuff we Catholics have unfortunately heard at some point of our lives.

Since this is a quick post, I won't write what I'm giving up for Lent... mostly because I'm not really giving up anything. I'm actually adding. I'll explain it all (hopefully) tomorrow since I'm exhausted from the driving and I have an early morning tomorrow with my Thesis adviser.

Quick question for those who will read this (since they are still up)... are any of you leaving your ashes on until they fade or are you washing it off today/tomorrow? I am always curious because everyone seems to have their own tradition regarding this. :)

Okay, that's it for now. This sinner just wanted to share my ashes with y'all. Hope the week's been going well for y'all. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D