Ash Wednesday

Today we will hear those words "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." They are the words God said to Adam and Eve when they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. When all that he had was so suddenly taken from him, Job said "naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (cf. Job 1:20)

The beginning of 2013 has certainly been a rocky start for Nicole and myself. We experienced some unexpected car trouble that kept me away from a formation workshop-the first such formation-related event I have ever missed, and I hope the last. We then experienced a series of unexpected minor calamities, none of which would be a very big deal by themselves, but which, happening all at once, had the effect of depleting the bank account unexpectedly. Then my grandmother passed away, although we knew it was coming. At the end of this past week, a cousin of Nicole's had his life brought to an end at a youthful age. Last night at RCIA, I learned that not only was a dear friend who is part of our RCIA team having chest pains, but that he was told by his doctor to go immediately to hospital.  The early weeks of this Year of Our Lord 2013 have shown us how fragile and delicate our lives are.

We are blessed to serve a God of second chances, and Lent is all about second chances. It is a season of conversion and repentance and penance on the one hand, and renewal and refreshment and new life (as we know we move toward Easter and the Lord's Resurrection). However, Lent is also a reminder to us that taking advantage of God's mercy is our choice, and we only have one life to do it in.  That, coincidentally, is why you see the clock on the left sidebar of this blog. Yes, you will be able to tell the time by . More importantly, however, it is my hope that it will serve as a reminder that God's me for us in this world is finite-each of us has one life to do our part for the Kingdom of God.

Some will hear the words today "turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." We are called to a life of fidelity to God, and today is a reminder that no matter what we might have done, Christ is ready to receive us in love all over again.

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.