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email clients. */
/* Beware: It can remove the padding / margin and add a background
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text-align: center;
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* {
-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;
-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;
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div[style*="margin: 16px 0"] {
margin:0 !important;
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/* What it does: Stops Outlook from adding extra spacing to tables.
*/
table,
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mso-table-lspace: 0pt !important;
mso-table-rspace: 0pt !important;
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alignment bug. Applies table-layout to the first 2 tables then removes
for anything nested deeper. */
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table table table {
table-layout: auto;
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in IE. */
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-ms-interpolation-mode:bicubic;
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/* What it does: Overrides styles added when Yahoo's auto-senses a
link. */
.yshortcuts a {
border-bottom: none !important;
}
/* What it does: A work-around for iOS meddling in triggered links.
*/
.mobile-link footer a,
a[x-apple-data-detectors] {
color:inherit !important;
text-decoration: underline !important;
}
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/* What it does: Hover styles for buttons */
.button-td,
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transition: all 100ms ease-in;
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.button-td:hover,
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@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {
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width: 100% !important;
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.fluid-centered {
max-width: 100% !important;
height: auto !important;
Margin-left: auto !important;
Margin-right: auto !important;
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Margin-left: auto !important;
Margin-right: auto !important;
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/* What it does: Forces table cells into full-width rows. */
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max-width: 100% !important;
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text-align: center !important;
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Margin-right: auto !important;
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background-color: #fff;
width: 100%;
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color:#7A9534;
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.signup a {font-family: Roboto Condensed, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;
color: #4F4293; padding-bottom:0px; padding-top: 15px;
font-weight:600; margin-bottom: 0px; text-decoration: none}
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Catholic Charities USA
Ash Wednesday
Readings of the Day
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"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."
This phrase will be prayed over many who gather today to be
"anointed" with ashes. In my youth, I took it to be rather
demeaning. I understood it to say that all my friends at Mass and I
were just discountable, forgettable dirt.
I'm afraid that many of us still have that perspective. Because
of whatever message we heard as kids, or some societal standards we
did not meet, we think that are just dust...worthless. This is
true for many of the folks we serve through our agencies. They may not
attend a specific service today, but they experience that same lack of
worth or feeling that they are just dust. This negative view of the
self, perpetuated by a misunderstanding of what it means to be dust,
causes so much suffering and pain.
Gratefully, I've come to learn another meaning about being
"dust." It's from the first few lines of the second
creation story in Genesis. God digs into the dirt - the clay of the
ground - and lovingly forms a human being. In Hebrew, the term for
dirt or clay is "Adamah," while the word for the human
formed out of this Adamah is "Adam." You see, that first
human, (Adam taken from Adamah) that God pours creative energy into
and breathes His own breath into, is you and me.
The human person finds roots in the dust of the earth. Not in a way
that is demeaning, but in an awesome way. In Scripture, God saw a pile
of dirt and envisioned a creature that could be created in God's
own image who would forever reflect the divine creative imagination.
When we hear "you are dust" today, let's not hear
"dirt to be shaken off our shoes" but "gift of life
with limitless dignity, breathing in God's Spirit." If we
receive ashes with an awareness of our deep connection to the earth,
we recognize our solidarity with all humanity - particularly the
clients we serve. And we can embrace our call to care for the source
of our life, this earth, our call to lift up one another in
recognition our dignity through our creation by God's own hand,
and our call to give thanks to our God who so lovingly shares with us
the gift of life.
Fr. Ragan Shriver is Associate Professor of Practice and Director of
the MSSW program at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville, and
Special Assistant to the President for Strategic Integration at
Catholic Charities USA.
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