I’ve got beef.

The beef I refer to is not literal side-of-steer beef. Rather I make a reference to a metaphorically large, 21-ounce steak qualm.

While this may not be the best spiritual way for a Catholic to begin the holy preparation period for Easter, I feel I must vent my frustration about Ash Wednesday. I don’t like it.

Allow me to qualify. Ash Wednesday is a fine day, a stellar kick off to the Lenten season. The attitudes that Catholics have towards the day make me irritated, though. This all started about six years ago…

(Cue the time warp music now.)

I was sitting in church back home for the Ash Wednesday afternoon service, and the church was packed. Standing room only. Sunday services never got this full. Unless the day was Christmas or Easter, but that’s an issue for an entirely different column. The crazy thing was that all Ash Wednesday services were like this.

It made me question why a day where Catholics are reminded of their own mortality is a day with one of the highest attendance totals of the year. As the ashes were smeared onto the foreheads of the waiting faithful, the answer came to me.

During the ash distribution, even more people came into the church. They were late – of course – running on the typical Catholic time, but as soon as they got their ashes, they left. Total time in church: less than five minutes. I was hit with an epiphany. I realized that I had misplaced the entire focus of my Catholic faith.

For so long, I was under the illusion that receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (not everyone is going to agree on this; however, since this is my column, I post my views) was going to help me on my path toward salvation.

All this time I was wrong. All I needed to do was burn some blessed palm fronds and smear them in the shape of a cross on my forehead. That’s all.

What made me even more infuriated was that the Bible was wrong this whole time. God mislead us in his Holy Book. In the Gospel it is the quiet man praying in the church who is praised by Jesus while the Pharisee who is praying loudly for everyone to hear is ostracized. That’s not how the real world works. We need to go to church and get ashes to prove what good Catholics we are. It’s the one day a year where church-goers can get a visible receipt for time spent in worship.

What’s more, it’s not even necessary to stay for the whole service. Five minutes is enough to be reminded of my own mortality and to get the ole smear-a-roo of ashes on my forehead. How could I have been so blind?

I guess I’m not mad at the people who come out of the woodwork one day a year for their proof of Catholic-ness. I’m mad at the Church as an whole. For an institution that stresses truth in all forms, it has relied on a deception for so way too long.

Therefore, I stay irritated at Ash Wednesday, holding my grudge, letting my beef grow bigger and bigger.

The Catholic Church is against holding grudges, but if I’ve been deceived about Ash Wednesday, what else could I have been hoodwinked about?

I do feel the need to spread the word, about the one thing for which I am certain. While so many people have figured Ash Wednesday out, I’m positive that there are still some people out there – confused people who are as I was six years ago. I don’t want them to have to come to this terrible realization on their own, so I openly share – just like the Pharisee would.