The Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, born in 1901, was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas the second, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia.

When Anastasia was thirteen, she was given a ‘Brownie’ box camera, first invented some ten years previously. As a precocious teenager, she stood herself in front of a mirror and clicked the camera in her hands. Having had the photo developed she sent it to a friend. In an accompanying letter she wrote. “I took this picture of myself looking at the mirror. It was very hard because my hands were trembling.” What Anastasia had produced was the first self-portrait of herself. It may have been the last, as tragically she was murdered with her family in July 1918, during the course of the Russian Revolution.

Advances in technology have meant that making a self-portrait has never been easier. During the 1970s, the instant Polaroid camera became available, but this has now been superseded by mobile phone cameras. Now, along with the ‘Brownie’ box camera, the term ‘self-portrait’ is also obsolete. The word ‘selfie’, meaning taking an image of oneself by means of a mobile phone, has now entered the dictionary.

Today marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is an opportunity to take a selfie and then to examine it critically. What might we see? Imagine like Anastasia, sending that portrait to a friend. What might that friend honestly say about us?

In addition, Ash Wednesday is a time to address the elephant in the room. We are confronted with advertisements of cures and remedies claiming to take years off our life and to make us feel younger. But as the hymn says, “Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away”. The word “death” is tiptoed around. In such situations, many individuals prefer to use the terms “passed on” or “taken from us”. In short, we fail to accept that time on earth is only finite. Ash Wednesday brings us up short. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Our self-portrait before us, along with knowledge of a day of judgement, our shortcomings and our mortality, might prompt us to penitence. An outward sign of penitence that we are offering today is an ‘Imposition of the Ashes’ [the mark of the cross applied to the forehead, using a paste of olive oil and the ashes prepared by burning palm crosses from the previous year], either self-imposed or applied by someone else after receipt of the sacraments.

Grant us Lord the wisdom and grace to use aright the time that is left to us here on earth. Lead us to repent of our sins, the evil we have done and the good we have not done and strengthen us to follow the way that leads to the fullness of eternal life.

Amen.

Photo by Alexei Maridashvili on Unsplash