Daily Retreat 02/06/08
2008 Feb 6 Wed: Ash Wednesday.
Jl 2: 12-18/ Ps 50(51): 3-4. 5-6ab. 12-13. 14 and 17/ 2 Cor 5: 20 -- 6:2/ Mt 6: 1-6. 16-18
From today’s readings: “Even now, says the LORD, return to Me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.... Have mercy on me, O God, in Your goodness; in the greatness of Your compassion wipe out my offense.... Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.... When you give alms, when you pray, when you fast....”
Ashes Already!
This year, Easter Sunday is March 23 - the earliest it will be in any of our lifetimes! Since Easter is early, so is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our Lenten 40 day preparation for Easter. But that doesn’t mean we should pretend these early ashes give an excuse to blow off Lent!
Every day, in fact, you and I are faced with prickly reminders of our own mortality, but we can usually ignore them easily enough, at least until we’re faced with grave illness, advanced age, or a major accident. Although each of us knows that a day of death will come for each of us, naturally (or superstitiously?) enough, we tend to avoid (or at least postpone) dwelling much on that realization.
But the ashes which give the name to this sober (not somber!) day at the start of Lent are intended to move the dusty memories of our mortality from the back to the front of our heads. With the imposition of ashes, the priest gives the reminder, “Remember man, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return!”
Though some would like to, it does no good to dismiss the priest (or Church) as unduly morbid - the words merely echo what God saw fit to remind Adam of after his fall (cf. Genesis 3:19). In offering this reminder then, God was not acting like some big bully, facetiously rubbing Adam’s face in the dirt of his mortality. No, God was merely speaking sobering words that would give Adam and all his children an essentially earthy perspective about life, and though so biblically grounded, not even an atheist would dare to contradict the insight.
“Remember man, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return!” What other words have you ever heard which were at the same time so humbling, and so inspiring? They humble us with the dirty truth about what we are, and what we will be, but they inspire us with the unspoken implication that, since my dust, the dust that I am, differs now from the dust at my feet, there’s got to be more to me than just dust!
The “more,” of course, is what is inspired in us - the life breath of God, the share He’s breathed (“in-spired”) in me of His Spirit. So you and I are not dust blowing in the wind - we’re dust blowing in God’s Spirit! Thus, every direction we take in life is a choice to either be born up by the Spirit or settle down with the dust that makes us up.
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are three disciplines that Jesus specifically recommends that we subject our dust to, giving us the means to pulverize iniquity and avoid being buried in the contaminated dirt of sin. Indeed, something heavenly happens when dust is taken up by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, for even though Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with Adam’s earthy reminder of our limited life on this planet, Lent leads to Easter Sunday and Christ’s celestial promise of eternal life in Heaven!
Jl 2: 12-18/ Ps 50(51): 3-4. 5-6ab. 12-13. 14 and 17/ 2 Cor 5: 20 -- 6:2/ Mt 6: 1-6. 16-18
From today’s readings: “Even now, says the LORD, return to Me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.... Have mercy on me, O God, in Your goodness; in the greatness of Your compassion wipe out my offense.... Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.... When you give alms, when you pray, when you fast....”
Ashes Already!
This year, Easter Sunday is March 23 - the earliest it will be in any of our lifetimes! Since Easter is early, so is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our Lenten 40 day preparation for Easter. But that doesn’t mean we should pretend these early ashes give an excuse to blow off Lent!
Every day, in fact, you and I are faced with prickly reminders of our own mortality, but we can usually ignore them easily enough, at least until we’re faced with grave illness, advanced age, or a major accident. Although each of us knows that a day of death will come for each of us, naturally (or superstitiously?) enough, we tend to avoid (or at least postpone) dwelling much on that realization.
But the ashes which give the name to this sober (not somber!) day at the start of Lent are intended to move the dusty memories of our mortality from the back to the front of our heads. With the imposition of ashes, the priest gives the reminder, “Remember man, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return!”
Though some would like to, it does no good to dismiss the priest (or Church) as unduly morbid - the words merely echo what God saw fit to remind Adam of after his fall (cf. Genesis 3:19). In offering this reminder then, God was not acting like some big bully, facetiously rubbing Adam’s face in the dirt of his mortality. No, God was merely speaking sobering words that would give Adam and all his children an essentially earthy perspective about life, and though so biblically grounded, not even an atheist would dare to contradict the insight.
“Remember man, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return!” What other words have you ever heard which were at the same time so humbling, and so inspiring? They humble us with the dirty truth about what we are, and what we will be, but they inspire us with the unspoken implication that, since my dust, the dust that I am, differs now from the dust at my feet, there’s got to be more to me than just dust!
The “more,” of course, is what is inspired in us - the life breath of God, the share He’s breathed (“in-spired”) in me of His Spirit. So you and I are not dust blowing in the wind - we’re dust blowing in God’s Spirit! Thus, every direction we take in life is a choice to either be born up by the Spirit or settle down with the dust that makes us up.
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are three disciplines that Jesus specifically recommends that we subject our dust to, giving us the means to pulverize iniquity and avoid being buried in the contaminated dirt of sin. Indeed, something heavenly happens when dust is taken up by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, for even though Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with Adam’s earthy reminder of our limited life on this planet, Lent leads to Easter Sunday and Christ’s celestial promise of eternal life in Heaven!
posted by FrPitstick | 2/05/2008
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