In search of ashes

(and iPhone chargers)

I’ve been to mass several times since arriving in Italy, once in English at the Duomo and the rest in Italian at various other churches in Florence (Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, & San Lorenzo. I also visited Santa Maria Novella with my art history class. Many of their websites are only in Italian, but I have an English newspaper that lists the mass times for many churches, and I’ve been using that as my guide every week. I love that there are so many beautiful churches within walking distance from my apartment, and have been taking the opportunity to visit a new one each week.

The times are listed as for weekday masses, and Sundays & holidays. The times for Sundays and holidays are the same, so I figured I would be able to attend Ash Wednesday mass at these times as well. (Spoiler alert: I was wrong.)

I chose San Salvatore in Ognissanti, which has mass at 10:30 am, and a friend and I walked over this morning. But the church was just open for tourists to wander through inside, and usually when I attend mass it is closed to visitors. We were early so we sat and waited a few minutes, but eventually we realized that there was no mass. Then we checked and saw that Santa Croce has mass at 11 am, so we rushed over there to make it on time. At Santa Croce, I spoke to a woman who told me that there was again no mass, and that I should try the Duomo tonight.

I came home and talked to my mom, who told me that Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation, which is why these churches didn’t have mass at the time listed for holidays.

In class that afternoon, two of my friends told me that the Duomo had Ash Wednesday services only until 4:30, so we asked our professor if we could leave early to make it there on time. That was no problem, except that the Duomo didn’t have ashes then either, not until 6pm. Who knew finding an Ash Wednesday mass in Italy would be so difficult?!

Since we had already left class early, I set out in search of a new iPod charger, because mine just stopped working yesterday. There are always five or six vendors on the street between Accademia Italiana and the Ponte Vecchio selling chargers, earbuds, and various other electronic accessories, but I was never sure how much they would cost or if they were reliable. But with a broken charger and an impending international trip tomorrow (!), and my iPod being my only lifeline, I figured now was the time to find out. He charged me €15 for both pieces, (I should have bargained the price down, but I’m new to this) I went home and plugged it into the wall and- niente. It was broken! I was so angry that I went straight back out to the man who sold it to me. “You just sold me this and it doesn’t work! Doesn’t work. Broken.” Even in English, he was able to figure out what I was saying. He gave me another one and showed me on a portable charger that it worked. I was proud of myself for going back and fighting it.

Mass at the Duomo was grandiose and very long. There were 26 priests, a bishop, and three guards. There were no pamphlets with the readings as there usually are on Sundays, so I wasn’t able to follow along, but I still had a general idea of what was happening. Ashes were distributed not in the shape of crosses onto our foreheads, but instead sprinkled on the top of our heads. It was very different from Ash Wednesday service at home or at school, but I’m glad I was eventually able to find it.

(It took me entirely too long to find this photo, and we don’t even have ashes on our heads because it was taken before mass. But you get the idea- way less formal than the Cathedral, at Holy Cross they even let us students distribute the ashes!)