Homily – Ash Wednesday

February 13, 2013   Cycle C

Joel 2:12-18     Matthew 6:1-6,16-18                                                                    

Today we are marked with a cross of ashes.  Yes, we Catholics are once again in the season of a little fasting, some respectable abstinence, and a great many fish fries.  The cross of ashes will be invisible by morning.  But we are to remember that we stood in line to accept that cross and to lived marked by it especially when it’s invisible to others.

The cross and the ashes are but one symbol we have before us today.  We’ll also be called to our share of almsgiving by participating in what we as a parish community are choosing to support with the Caring Pregnancy Center.  You will have the opportunity today to pick up a small baby bottle and use it as a container to give your monetary donations through the coming weeks for the work and service that this organization offers to the young women of our community.  We will be hearing more about that before we finish our service today.  The children in Religious Formation will also be collecting diapers and/or money for this Lenten Project.

The third symbol is here in our sanctuary.  It is the logo that the Pope, along with the Vatican, has chosen for this Year of Faith.   You will be able to use this in another practical way that when you fill your baby bottles, you will return them here to the Church.  At offertory we will place them inside our boat on Palm Sunday.  Your donations will then be carried over to the good people at the Caring Pregnancy Center.

Last weekend we heard the beautiful Gospel passage from St. Luke’s call to Peter to “Put out into the deep water.” (Luke 5:4)  It is a reminder that we are especially called in the season of Lent to put out into the deep waters, signifying a place of uncertainty, challenge, risk, and the unknown.  The boat could be of any proportion or size.  Some might choose for example a kayak whipping downstream head on.  Or then others discover their lives are more comfortable in a row boat, where you have to look back in order to move forward.  Still others may find their lives in such chaos that they need a lifeboat that will get them through the immediate issues.  While others might feel more comfortable in Noah’s Ark. 

We speak of Lent as being a time to be in touch with those areas where we need to make better decisions about who we are and how we want to live.  Is it a time for you to turnaround and take a new direction?  Some authors have compared the Church in today’s world to Noah’s Ark.  What a mess it must have been inside the Ark, and how bad it must have smelled.  But the Church is sort of like that old boat --- it stinks inside, but if you get out you’re going to drown.

The symbol of the boat in these forty days of Lent can also be a place where loss is turned into gain.  It’s a place of redemption and the deep water stands in opposition to the shallows of the shore line.  We often prefer the shallows, but our Lenten journey calls us and commands us, and life itself forces us to put out into the deep waters. 

The deep waters are as unique as each of our lives.  It could mean a change in attitude towards our family, towards people in our community.  It can mean a change to a simpler lifestyle – living simply so others may simply live.  It may mean venturing into the deep waters of our own prejudices and habitual ways of thinking – and making changes.  The point is, when we confront the challenge of a new way of life, if we listen and hear the words which sounded by Jesus across the waters, “Put out into the deep water,” we know that we move forward with the support of a faith community at our side.  For as we receive the sign of ashes, we can pray for the old ways to die in us, so the new ways can come to life. 

The most fruitful way to approach this season is in the spirit of humility and imitation of the saints.  If we do so humbly, there’s no telling where God might take us.  And we do trust that the Lord will be with us even in the deep waters.  He is there to rescue us because we are part of an incarnate Church.  We do believe that Christ is present in all people.  Respond to the challenge of the Lenten Gospel knowing that Christ Himself passed through the waters of life, even to the deep waters of death, transforming them for all of us. 

Amen.  Amen.  Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor Christ the King