Remember you are dust...

Of all of the readings from the Divine Office or from the Mass for Ash Wednesday, 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 has always been my favorite:

Brothers and sisters:
We are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Working together, then,
we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says:

In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.

 Today we are reminded of our own mortality, that as we feel the ashes placed upon our foreheads we are either told "remember you are dust, and to the dust you shall return" or "turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." We are always being called, whatever the season of the year, to do just that, but Lent reminds us that fidelity to the Gospel and to, dare we say, Gospel values, is our first call as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is a time each of us are asked by the Church to, through our actions and especially in a spirit of penance and with childlike faith, fast remembering those who cannot eat, deny ourselves some of our creature comforts remembering those who are deprived, to give of our time and treasure and talents in the best way that we can remembering that our Church, our community, and even people in other parts of the world need us. Perhaps most important of our Lenten disciplines ought to be an increased life of prayer. We are all sinners, but we are striving to be saints, and it is through prayer that we can truly orient our lives in God's direction and put God first in our personal life, our homes, our work and public life, and even our social life.

Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters speak of the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You won't find that phrase in scripture, of course, but we know there is something legitimate to it theologically. For some people, they have come to believe that they develop this personal relationship by responding to a call by a preacher or a minister to come forward, but a one-time shot isn't how that relationship is developed. The only way that a person can truly develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ-that is, to know him more intimately and fully as we would our friend or brother, is through a deepening life of prayer, and Lent may be the best time to make the changes we need to in order to make our prayer life a better one in order that we can deepen our relationship with Jesus. He certainly wants that, because we can't even begin to fathom the depth of His love for us or, as the old hymn tells us, the wideness of His mercy.

I can tell you that deaconate formation has certainly brought me into a deeper relationship with Christ, with His Mother, with the communion of saints than I have ever had before. I know that is part of the formation process, to bring us closer to Christ and into a deeper union with Him as we explore and discern our vocation, and whether we are being called to Sacrament of Holy Orders. Jesus and His Mother don't just want men on a journey of Aspirancy to the deaconate to come into a deeper relationship with them and a closer union with Christ, we are all called to that deep relationship, and as part of that, to a deeper unity as the Body of Christ.

Let us commit this Lent to a life of prayer for deeper unity of the Church and a deeper relationship with Christ through the Eucharist and through His Church.