February 25, 2009 Cycle B
Joel 2:12-18 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
The words that might be said as we receive the ashes today are words that I say at the cemetery, as we are about to inter a loved one, “Remember that you are dust and on to dust you shall return.” With all the other Christians whose spirits are dusty and grimy, we gather this Ash Wednesday to affirm our shared need to “repent and believe in the Good News in the Gospel.” We are marked then with this identity by the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads.
We are all familiar with ashes. On our TV screens they come into our homes on the agonizing faces of victims of war and terrorism against the backdrop of their burned out buildings. They come into our homes on the irrelevant tongues of those who threaten violence that reduces hope to ashes. But in contrast, ashes are also the faces of heroic figures, like firefighters and emergency workers. Thus ash has a new dignity, a humble witness to self-sacrifice and love of neighbor.
Since the last Ash Wednesday we attended, something has almost certainly and personally turned to “ash” for us. For example, when illness struck in our families, or when a loved one has died, or when friendship was betrayed, or when illusions about ourselves or others were destroyed -- so much ash!
And yet ash is also fertile and protective. After a brush fire ravishes the countryside, new life springs forth from cracked seeds and mulched branches. To keep the embers in the hearth warm until morning there was an old Irish ritual of covering them. The woman of the house would cover the last embers at night with a soft blanket of ash to keep them warm until morning where she would then brush away the ash and rekindle the fire with her breath.
You see, Ash Wednesday calls us into the Lenten weeks of keeping warm the embers of our own Christian discipleship through renewed commitment to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Thus, the breath of the Easter Jesus may rekindle in us the fire of our Baptism. Come Easter, the Alleluia may truly be our song of praise for what God has done, is doing, and will do for us in Jesus.
Today as we take on the things of Lent, we are reminded that the self-denial is not a part of a keep fit program, as good as that might be. We don’t give up food, forego alcohol or chocolate to keep slim, to prove to ourselves that we are not alcoholics or have great willpower. No, we give up, or take on things this Lent because it helps to change our mind-sets for the better. Our sacrifices remind us that our bodies crave certain food or drink so our souls crave God.
The image of craving God is found in the “Covenant” symbolized by the rainbow. This weekend I shall speak more about this image, but in the meantime today we will give your this “bookmark” as to remember for these forty days to renew your relationship with Jesus.
Thus Lent is the time we choose again to live life to the full because one day we will die. And if we want to prepare for the best possible, most loving and peaceful death, then being selfless, sacrificial, and generous, is the way to live. Jesus showed us this way of self-denial on the path to Eternal Life.
So we wash our faces, we anoint our heads in ash, and joyfully face up to our dying because of the selfless way we wish to live our lives.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom, Pastor, Christ the King