The art shown above reminds me of when I visited the California Franciscan missions years ago and saw some of the crude, extremely bloody (some might say gruesome) religious artwork the people made hundreds of years ago. The thought that struck me then was that the harder the life of the people, the more intensely they relate to the image of the suffering Christ. People need to make sense of their pain and the fact that death is their daily reality. They need to know that God is with them in their suffering.

I think that's also why Ash Wednesday resonates so deeply, even for those who never otherwise darken the door of a church. There's something about that stark reminder of mortality that feeds the soul, especially for those of us living in a contemporary culture that sells us a lot of soothing lies about perpetual youth and vitality.