Ash Wednesday
February 13, 2013
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
Along with millions of people around the world, we will hear those words as
we step forward in a few minutes to receive the blessed ashes on our foreheads.
But I have to think that, this particular Lent, the momentous news of Pope
Benedict’s resignation will be a more powerful reminder of human mortality than
even the ashes of Ash Wednesday. In making his courageous decision, the Pope
was, among other things, making a profound statement about mortality -- his own
and ours. He was saying something very powerful about the transitory nature of
human life. His own increasing infirmity and the crushing demands of his office
were, as he saw it, God’s way of telling him that it was time to step aside.
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We should be
grateful to Pope Benedict for giving us such a powerful and credible example of
what it means to face one’s own mortality. Benedict has often been
referred to as ‘the teaching Pope.’ This may well be one of his finest moments
as teacher and one of the most enduring of all his teachings.
But Ash Wednesday is more than a meditation on mortality, a coming to terms
with the death that awaits us all. Ash Wednesday, and Lent, are really as much
about life as they are about death. For that reason, I have always liked the way
the great Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner, spoke of the ashes of Ash Wednesday. I
quote from one of his sermons: “When on Ash Wednesday we hear the words,
‘Remember, you are dust,’ we are also being told that we are brothers and
sisters of the incarnate Lord who took on our flesh, our dust. So, in
those words we are really being told everything that we are: we are nothingness,
yes, but we are nothingness filled with eternity; we are death that teems with
life; we are dust that is filled with God’s life.”
I am quite
certain that Pope Benedict would say yes to all of that. In fact, I think he
said yes to it by the very decision he took to resign. Could it be that he
wants, through more intense prayer during whatever time he has remaining, to
immerse himself ever more fully into what it means to be a brother of the
incarnate Lord who took on our flesh, our dust? That he wants the luxury of
undisturbed time to ponder more deeply what it means to be “nothingness filled
with eternity”? I have to think so, and for that reason I read his
decision to step aside as a statement not only about mortality but about
eternity.
On this Ash Wednesday, in addition to Pope Benedict’s voice, we also have
the voice of the Prophet Joel. “Return to me with your whole heart;” he
says, “rend your heart, not your garments.” Lent is a time for returning
to God. And who among us doesn’t need to do that in one way or another?
And how are we to do it? I can think of no better way than the Church’s
threefold Lenten program that was set forth in today’s gospel: prayer,
almsgiving, and fasting.
PRAYER. To quiet us down, and to put us in touch with the God who
finds it difficult to speak to us when we are always busy, preoccupied with a
thousand concerns, our engines racing at full speed. Prayer -- the kind of
prayer that slows us down so we can hear what it is God is trying to say to us
in the midst of the busy whirlwind of our lives. Prayer: public prayer
like the Mass, and quiet, contemplative prayer, alone with God. Lent is
the time for both. And this Lent our prayer should be especially intense as we
beg the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and guidance for those whose awesome responsibility
it is to elect a ne Pope.
Second, ALMSGIVING -- How better to practice the great commandment of the
New Law: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"? In letting go
of things -- especially material things like money -- we find a new freedom from
selfishness and at the same time we discover the face of God in the face of our
needy sister or brother.
FASTING – Our voluntary Lenten fasting is the perfect opportunity for us to
become aware of the forced fasting of others, a time to identify with the
thousands of poor and hungry people throughout the world – including tens of
thousands of children who die each day from causes traceable to hunger and
malnutrition. Our fasting is modest indeed when compared with theirs.
Fasting and almsgiving touch on two very fundamental human needs – the need for
nourishment and the need for ownership. We who have so much, so very much,
can afford to cater to those needs a little less so that others may have more.
My friends in Christ, the praying we do this Lent, the alms we give, and the
fasting we undertake, have tremendous power to renew us in mind and spirit. And
I think it’s safe to say that this Lent of 2013 will take on special meaning
and, I would hope, have a special intensity, thanks to Pope Benedict’s momentous
decision. Lent! It is about coming to terms with mortality and with eternity.
Dust we are, yes, but dust that is filled with the very life of God. May this
year’s Lenten journey bring us close to Jesus who willingly embraced death that
we might have life.
Father Michael G. Ryan
