25/02: Ash Wednesday (B)
Category: General
Posted by: tonycurrer
If a Martian landed among us and watched what happens during this hour, he or she – or should that be ‘it’? – might be tempted to conclude that we are all hypocrites… The Gospel reading I’ve just proclaimed is fairly explicit: When you give alms, do not have it trumpeted before you… your almsgiving must be in secret… When you pray, go to your private room… when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that no-one will know that you are fasting except your Father…
Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting – three key disciplines we associate with the season of Lent. And the Lord’s instruction is to do these things in private – with the minimum of fuss and ostentation… no showing off or grand gestures. And, having heard these words…. and endured these reflections of mine… what will we do next? Fr Paul and I will daub great gaudy, messy blobs of ash on your foreheads… And so, any intention you might have had to keep your Lenten discipline private and unshowy will be thwarted as you go out from here, your foreheads mucky from the ashes!
So, what’s going on? Are we really hypocrites who read one thing in the gospel and then, just five minutes later, before we even leave the building, turn around and do the exact opposite?
I sincerely hope not! The only way I can think of reconciling the gospel’s instructions with this very public branding with ashes is to think in terms of motivation. We don’t line up and receive the ashes in order to show our recalcitrant family members, our unbelieving neighbours, or our sceptical or cynical college roommates how seriously we take our Christianity and how proud we are of our Catholicism. We don’t receive the ashes in order to show off, or even in order to bear witness before the world.
No… we receive the ashes in order to remind ourselves of something. These ashes are what was left when we burnt the palms we waved last Holy Week. Signs of triumph and adulation on Palm Sunday, they had since dried up. No longer were they signs of triumph. They are dust… desiccated…reminders of death.
One of the sets of words used when signing with the ashes is Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return. Even when we use the somewhat less grim formula Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel, it’s hard not to be briefly reminded of our mortality and frailty, as that gritty, messy, smoky thumb makes contact with our foreheads. So… Make no mistake: The signing with ashes isn’t a hypocritical gesture for others to be impressed at… It’s a radically personal and intimate sign for ourselves…
But even that can sound unnecessarily negative… It can sound like the kind of good old-fashioned Catholic guilt that comedians take so much pleasure in sending up – Remember you are dust… Be guilty… Be afraid…But, it seems to me, that that startlingly powerful combination of words, eye contact and touch that occurs when the minister imposes the ashes on your forehead is a call not to terror, scruples, fear, or anxiety…
It is a call to remember what we are… who we are… who made us… in whom is our destiny… It is a call to remember that we are God’s creatures…
It is a call, expressed, so beautifully in the first reading from Joel, to return to him with all our hearts… not with big gestures, but with a change of heart – for he is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, and ready to relent.
Of course that’s a daily call – or at least it should be – but the Church offers us this season of grace to do it in a more concentrated way, and to be conscious of one another while so doing. It is a great and most beautiful paradox, that the Lenten call is a radically personal and individual call to turn more closely towards God… and yet despite being personal and individual, it is something we do together as Christians.
Lent originally developed as a time of intense preparation for those who were preparing for baptism at Easter. It was, and still is, described as a ‘period of purification and enlightenment’ for them. With time, the rest of the Church joined them in this period of examination, conversion, and preparation… seeking to enlarge their own hearts by acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. And we continue to do that. Our RCIA group meets here on Wednesdays, and as the various members of the group prepare either for baptism, or for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter, we accompany them with our love, our support and our prayers.
The aim of Lent wasn’t – and isn’t – a reduced waistline or a detox of the system. The aim was – and is – a greater knowledge and experience of God – that the celebration of the Easter feasts might be a more fruitful, powerful and joyful one. We fast now that we may feast then. We remind ourselves of our human mortality now that we may revel then in the Eternal Life won for us and pledged to us by the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of the Incarnate Son of God. We refrain from singing alleluia now that we may sing it repeatedly and with abandon then. We come forward for ashes now, that we may splash in the waters of the font then. For, at its heart, Lent is a journey from ashes to the living font…
From ashes to the living font your Church must journey, Lord.
Baptised in grace, in grace renewed, by your most holy word.
Through fasting, prayer, and charity, your voice speaks deep within,
Returning us to ways of truth and turning us from sin.
For thirsting hearts let waters flow, our fainting souls revive;
And at the well your waters give – our everlasting life.
From ashes to the living font your Church must journey still,
Through cross and tomb to Easter joy, in Spirit-fire fulfilled.
(Words © Alan J Hommerding)
Now is the favourable time! This is the day of salvation!
Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting – three key disciplines we associate with the season of Lent. And the Lord’s instruction is to do these things in private – with the minimum of fuss and ostentation… no showing off or grand gestures. And, having heard these words…. and endured these reflections of mine… what will we do next? Fr Paul and I will daub great gaudy, messy blobs of ash on your foreheads… And so, any intention you might have had to keep your Lenten discipline private and unshowy will be thwarted as you go out from here, your foreheads mucky from the ashes!
So, what’s going on? Are we really hypocrites who read one thing in the gospel and then, just five minutes later, before we even leave the building, turn around and do the exact opposite?
I sincerely hope not! The only way I can think of reconciling the gospel’s instructions with this very public branding with ashes is to think in terms of motivation. We don’t line up and receive the ashes in order to show our recalcitrant family members, our unbelieving neighbours, or our sceptical or cynical college roommates how seriously we take our Christianity and how proud we are of our Catholicism. We don’t receive the ashes in order to show off, or even in order to bear witness before the world.
No… we receive the ashes in order to remind ourselves of something. These ashes are what was left when we burnt the palms we waved last Holy Week. Signs of triumph and adulation on Palm Sunday, they had since dried up. No longer were they signs of triumph. They are dust… desiccated…reminders of death.
One of the sets of words used when signing with the ashes is Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return. Even when we use the somewhat less grim formula Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel, it’s hard not to be briefly reminded of our mortality and frailty, as that gritty, messy, smoky thumb makes contact with our foreheads. So… Make no mistake: The signing with ashes isn’t a hypocritical gesture for others to be impressed at… It’s a radically personal and intimate sign for ourselves…
But even that can sound unnecessarily negative… It can sound like the kind of good old-fashioned Catholic guilt that comedians take so much pleasure in sending up – Remember you are dust… Be guilty… Be afraid…But, it seems to me, that that startlingly powerful combination of words, eye contact and touch that occurs when the minister imposes the ashes on your forehead is a call not to terror, scruples, fear, or anxiety…
It is a call to remember what we are… who we are… who made us… in whom is our destiny… It is a call to remember that we are God’s creatures…
It is a call, expressed, so beautifully in the first reading from Joel, to return to him with all our hearts… not with big gestures, but with a change of heart – for he is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, and ready to relent.
Of course that’s a daily call – or at least it should be – but the Church offers us this season of grace to do it in a more concentrated way, and to be conscious of one another while so doing. It is a great and most beautiful paradox, that the Lenten call is a radically personal and individual call to turn more closely towards God… and yet despite being personal and individual, it is something we do together as Christians.
Lent originally developed as a time of intense preparation for those who were preparing for baptism at Easter. It was, and still is, described as a ‘period of purification and enlightenment’ for them. With time, the rest of the Church joined them in this period of examination, conversion, and preparation… seeking to enlarge their own hearts by acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. And we continue to do that. Our RCIA group meets here on Wednesdays, and as the various members of the group prepare either for baptism, or for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter, we accompany them with our love, our support and our prayers.
The aim of Lent wasn’t – and isn’t – a reduced waistline or a detox of the system. The aim was – and is – a greater knowledge and experience of God – that the celebration of the Easter feasts might be a more fruitful, powerful and joyful one. We fast now that we may feast then. We remind ourselves of our human mortality now that we may revel then in the Eternal Life won for us and pledged to us by the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of the Incarnate Son of God. We refrain from singing alleluia now that we may sing it repeatedly and with abandon then. We come forward for ashes now, that we may splash in the waters of the font then. For, at its heart, Lent is a journey from ashes to the living font…
From ashes to the living font your Church must journey, Lord.
Baptised in grace, in grace renewed, by your most holy word.
Through fasting, prayer, and charity, your voice speaks deep within,
Returning us to ways of truth and turning us from sin.
For thirsting hearts let waters flow, our fainting souls revive;
And at the well your waters give – our everlasting life.
From ashes to the living font your Church must journey still,
Through cross and tomb to Easter joy, in Spirit-fire fulfilled.
(Words © Alan J Hommerding)
Now is the favourable time! This is the day of salvation!
