#Ashtag Wednesday: N.J. Catholics share their Lent selfies on social media

The hashtag #AshWednesday trended on Twitter today for the obvious reason: it's Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, a 40-day period before Easter dedicated to fasting and prayer.

Yet accompanying that trend was another, more interactive hashtag: #ashtag.

Catholics in New Jersey and across the country participated in the selfie trend, in which social users post self-portraits of their ashed foreheads. On Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, many smiling faces -- laypeople and clergy alike -- can be found sporting cinder-dusted skin in photos shared with the social connector #ashtag.

While some question the intent of the practice, others, like Andrew Malkinski, shared photos without hesitation.

Malkinski, 19, a freshman at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, said priests at a noon mass he attended today on campus encouraged attendees to seek out the hashtag.

"I've done Ash Wednesday before but I never tweeted about it," says Malkinski, of East Hanover. "I've never really thought of applying it to social media."

At roughly 1:22 p.m., he tweeted a photo of his forehead ash. In the picture, the landscape architecture major pointedly gazes upward, towards his ash mark. He shared his #ashtag with a musing about his forthcoming meatless Friday: "And Jesus proclaimed, 'let Friday be pizza day.' -Mark 7;1-2."

Malkinski normally attends church every week with his family, and said the social media movement functions as a sort of reminder. "I think it's a good way to inform people," he says, to remind them that it is, in fact, Ash Wednesday.

Mark Alves, a digital marketer in Washington, D.C., says #ashtag really started to pick up steam last year. He calls himself the "godfather of the #ashtag."

Alves says he seized on the punny hashtag -- originally the domain of "volcano enthusiasts" -- as a way to mark the day online. In March 2014, after Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres issued a social call to action involving a group celebrity selfie, Alves Photoshopped ashes onto the actors' foreheads and reshared the image.

"It started trending internationally," he says. This year he's applied the hashtag to another hot topic -- the film "50 Shades of Grey". ("Ashes also come in Fifty Shades of Grey: Take a selfie if you're gettin' some," reads a promotional image he created.) The aim: "To take something tawdry and turn it into something more positive," he says.

Alves says that in addition to its status as worldwide Twitter trend, the fact that members of the clergy -- priests and nuns -- have posted their own #ashtag photos is a measure of its success. Today the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops even beseeched its Twitter followers to share #ashtag photos as part of a promotion.

But Sister Anne Flanagan, a nun in Boston and member of the Daughters of St. Paul congregation, questioned the practice on Twitter.

"To #ashtag or not to ashtag," she tweeted. "Seems like a conflict between 'let your light shine' and 'do not let others see you are fasting.'"

Brandon Vogt, a Catholic blogger in Orlando, Fla., flatly rejects the social media movement.

"Ash Wednesday is no longer about repentance and self-examination but about retweets and selfies," he wrote yesterday. Vogt said the Church was "attempting to create cool trends rather than to call people into deeper meaning for the season of Lent."

Alves, who Photoshopped his own profile picture to show an "ash," does accept that some do not share his zest for #ashtag.

"I can certainly appreciate where they're coming from," he says. "If this is some way that people can join in and actually self-identify as Christians and as people willing to make some sort of sacrifice during Lent ... then I think some good can come of that, but everyone doesn't have to participate."

Jim Goodness, spokesman for and vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of Newark, believes this form of social engagement can yield some positivity.

"I think that if the reason people are doing that is to show in fact that they are being observant -- they're taking Lent seriously, they're looking at this as an opportunity to prepare themselves for Easter -- then I think it's a marvelous idea," he says.

On the flip side -- say, if all is vanity (these are selfies, after all) -- then he would change his mind.

"If it's just 'hey, look what I did today' and the next picture is of my shoes, or the Belgian waffle I had for breakfast, then the perspective is not quite there, which is a shame," Goodness says.

Still, he sees the #hashtag photos as encouraging evidence that young people are more engaged with the Church than the Church may have thought. For instance, Goodness says he's told that young people are into spirituality, not organized religion.

"This example of using technology, I think, is giving us a completely different message."

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup. Find NJ.com Entertainment on Facebook.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.