An Ash Wednesday experience to remember

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I was at our local Catholic church last night to celebrate a mass, that they have for Ash Wednesday. During this mass, a cross is drawn on the forehead of each person in the church, who wishes this to be done to them. It is smudged onto the forehead, with the wet paste of the ashes, mixed with holy water, and oil. The black paste is actually made with the ashes of the palms, that were used in the previous year, at our church, for palm Sunday, another celebration in the church, that takes place one week before Easter. I was kneeling at the pew, as the Priest, asked us to pray for our already gone loved ones. I thought of my mother, who had died, just over a year ago now. I was wondering if it was ok to ask God, to give her a disposition from Heaven, so that she might visit me here on the Earth, sometimes. Anyway, I was surprised then, that I felt someone kneeling next to me. I was in the aisle seat, at the end of a long pew, so nobody usually knelt in the aisle. I felt a presence there, and I looked to my right, as I found an old smallish arm, being now placed around my shoulders. I saw my mother, looking rather feeble and old, but just the same, fit enough to kneel down next to me. She was 87, when she had died. She whispered to me, "Is it alright for me to get a cross on my forehead too?" Now, my mother is not a Catholic. When she was alive, she came to my wife's, and my church, a few times with us, and not being a Catholic, she was not allowed to partake in the communion, or to eat the bread, and drink the wine. I knew now that this was really my mum. I wept, a little, with tears of joy, as I always do, when these types of things happen for me, and which is a sign for me, of the authenticity of my experience, as being a real one for me. She had asked me a similar question, when she was in the church, while she was still alive. "Am I allowed to take a wafer? Is it alright for me to go down the front with you too?" I had answered her, "Yes, you just have to cross your arms over your chest, and the priest will know that you are not a baptised Catholic, and he will give you a blessing then instead." I only joined the Catholic church myself, because my wife was a member there. For the first 15 years of our marriage, I was not a Catholic, and I used to cross my arms over too. I decided to join up one day, after I had had a moving experience at Easter, where, somebody, the Bishop, visiting that day, had asked me to join their family. My mother had been very pleased for me that I had done this too. I had gone a bit astray from Religion, before this. My mother knew that God was present in every church. She had had no qualms about me joining the Catholic church, even though she herself was a member of another denomination of Church, the Uniting Church. I remembered the old saying, "those who worship together, stay together." (It was something along those lines, maybe, in hindsight though, it might have been, "those who pray together, stay together," that one rhymes!) This was typical of my mother. She was always such a gracious, humble, softly spoken person. The funny thing was that I did not know the answer to her question, about the cross, in this instance either, and neither did my wife, when I quizzed her about it afterwards. After, searching this on the internet now though, it appears, that non-Catholics are allowed to have this cross drawn onto their foreheads too. Takeaway from this experience: Love has no barriers, and love reaches us whenever it needs to, from wherever it needs to come from. I needed to feel the love of my beloved mother, and so God granted me my, as yet unsaid, but definitely heard prayer. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The picture is of the ash that is used in the ceremony of Ash Wednesday.