Concerning that Ash Wednesday exit interview by former Sen. Ben Sasse

On his 54th birthday, former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska was given a cake that proclaimed, "Happy last Birthday Ben!"

"I have the best friends," the senator wrote on February 22, his smiling face weary from chemotherapy as he held the cake in a social media post.

Two days before Christmas, Sasse released a letter stating, "Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die." He recently offered an update in a Hoover Institution interview timed for Ash Wednesday, when millions of Christians are marked with an ash cross on their foreheads, while hearing: "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."

In December, doctors said he may have 90 days to live, which means he may not make it through Lent to Easter, which falls on April 5 this year, in Western churches.

Peter Robinson, host of the "Uncommon Knowledge" interview series, asked: "Instead of withdrawing from the world, you are throwing all that you have left into it. How come?"

"I'm with Paul when he says, 'To live is Christ, to die is gain,' " said Sasse, quoting the Epistle to the Philippians. "Obviously, death is a wicked thief. I don't want it to happen, but we're mortals. …

"We don't build any storehouses that last. The things that matter and endure are human souls. … We should be neither triumphalists nor despairing. Nothing we build is going to last, but that doesn't mean nothing matters. The chance to love your neighbor and serve is a blessing."

A bridge between Ash Wednesday and Easter: Most Americans do not 'get' Lent

When it comes to pulling Catholics into pews, Christmas rites top the list -- followed by a tie between Easter, the Christian calendar's most joyous day, and Ash Wednesday, which is the most sobering.

Last year, 51% of U.S. Catholics attended Mass on Easter, the same percentage as Ash Wednesday, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Christmas drew 68%.

The bridge between Ash Wednesday and Easter is the penitential season of Lent.

"Participating in Ash Wednesday which leaves a black cross on the forehead is one way for Catholics to identify themselves publicly and to express pride in their religious tradition," noted Father James J. Bacik, writing for the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. "It is also a way of indicating an intention to take Lent seriously."

Ash Wednesday services have, in recent decades, become common in some Protestant denominations. But what about Lent?

Lent is "not on the radar" for most Americans, according to a new Lifeway Research study focusing on Catholics, Protestants and the unchurched. One in four participants in the survey (26%) say they observe Lent, to one degree or another. That's lower than the 31% of Americans who claim to attend worship services weekly or almost weekly, according to 2023 polling by Gallup.

Most believers who observe Lent find their own ways to mark the season, with some form of the "give up one thing for Lent" pattern as the norm. It's hard to find evidence of ancient Christian patterns of fasting and abstinence in the survey results.

"Fasting is on the Christian liturgical calendar not unlike the Jewish Yom Kippur and Muslim Ramadan," noted Lifeway executive director Scott McConnell, in the organization's summary of the study. "For Christians attending non-liturgical churches, they may not even notice the season of Lent has arrived. It is not that they look down on the practices of fasting, prayer and charity. But if they participate, they may be exchanging additional time with God for other forms of self-denial."