Ashes on the Second Day of Chinese New Year 2026

Ashes on the Second Day of Chinese New Year

Back in Singapore, life quickly filled with Chinese New Year celebrations. Visits, reunion meals, laughter, red packets, new beginnings.

And yet this year, Ash Wednesday fell on the second day of Chinese New Year, a public holiday. Celebration and mourning held hands in the same week. What a contrast.

I was deeply gladdened by the turnout at church. In the midst of festivity, many chose to gather for reflection. The sermon ministered to me profoundly, calling us to reflection, repentance, and return to the Lord.

“Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

Rend your heart and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.

— Joel 2:12–13

As I approached the altar to receive the small cross of ashes on my forehead and heard the solemn words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” I found myself meditating on the weight of those ashes.

Throughout the Old Testament, ashes and sackcloth marked mourning, repentance, humility, and the acknowledgment of our mortality before God. Ashes remind us that we are fragile. That life is fleeting. That everything we build and celebrate rests upon dust.

And yet, it is loved dust.

As the ashes marked my forehead, I prayed earnestly for salvation. For the Alpha course I am anchoring. For the women in the group spiritual direction journey. I felt again the contrast of roles I carry. Proclamation and invitation to salvation. And the quiet, inward journey of listening and discernment.

One outward. One inward. Both rooted in the same gospel.

Perhaps this is the mystery of the Christian life. We celebrate. We repent. We proclaim. We listen. We rejoice in new beginnings, even as we remember our mortality.

Ashes and red packets. Dust and hope.

And in both, Christ meets us.

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Where in your life are celebration and repentance sitting side by side?
What might it mean to return to the Lord, even in the midst of festivity?