Then I really don’t understand. Do you wear ashes are not?
Oops, for some reason my whole answer disappeared off the screen. I think my Kindle is demon-possessed...
Yes, I wear ashes -— like most Catholics on Ash Wednesday and on no other day of the year.
Our Lord was warning about changing one’s appearance to look individually, distinctively holy in order to attract attention to oneself.
The exact opposite is the case when whole congregations are wearing ashes on Ash Wednesday. Here each person, instead of saying “I’m special,” is saying, “I am like all the rest of mankind. I am mortal. I am dust.”
If a person us swanning about making himself look conspicuously penitential to attract personal attention, he falls under the description of hypocrite.
Thus is not what’s happening today, when the penitent is not asserting his holiness and uniqueness, but rather Hus dirt-level commonality with the rest of the human race.
We are but dust. How profoundly we need a savior!