Across the globe last week, churches around the world celebrated Ash Wednesday, marking the start of Lent, the 40-day season of fasting and prayer that concludes with Easter. Every year, pastors and priests mark the foreheads of church members’ with ashes in the shape of a cross, a symbol of human mortality and an outward sign of devotion.  

At the Trinity Reformed Church in Ridgewood, the holiday had appealed to at least thirteen locals, who gathered last Wednesday to worship together and observe Ash Wednesday.

As church members shuffled in from the snowy street, they were greeted by Hilde, Pastor Thomas Goodhart’s dog, who attends all the church’s services and has since become a beloved part of the congregation. For the next hour, they sang hymns and read liturgy together before filing to the front of the church to receive their ashes. As Goodhart brushed ash crosses on each person’s forehead, he quietly repeated the same phrase: “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.”