Homily for Ash Wednesday 2006
From the dictionary:
Ash — the powdery residue of matter
that remains after burning.
Deathlike grayness, extreme pallor suggested.
Ruins, especially the residue of something destroyed;
remains, vestiges — So, the "ashes of their love..."
Anything, as an act, gesture, speech, feeling, etc.,
that is symbolic of penance, regret, remorse, or the like.
Can there be any question as to aptness of the tradition
of receiving ashes as a major symbol on Ash Wednesday,
the beginning of Lent?
Lent is the major penitential season for Christians,
a time to "wash away the negligence of other times."
As we sign the cross on each other's foreheads
there are two options of words to speak:
Remember Jane or John,
that you are dust and to dust you shall return.
These words take us back to Genesis 3,
the story of the fall —
and the painful words God speaks to Adam.
Surely this short sentence also captures Saint Benedict's admonition
to the monks to keep death daily before our eyes.
Ashes warn us that each one of us has a given span of days,
days in which to live the life that God really wants for us.
The ashes warn us not to delay;
manana, tomorrow, is always the busiest day of the week.
Ashes warn us to be ready to die today.
But the ashes are not the whole story.
The prompt to this fact is that we put them on in the shape of a cross.
This takes us back to the cross, to Christ,
to our baptism into Christ.
Again, those simple words with water,
I baptize you in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The application of the ashes takes us back to the font.
Benedict's insightful phrase,
"to wash away the negligences of other times" as a description of Lent
integrates these two events.
Whatever we do in this Lent is should draw us more deeply into Christ
and the great mystery of his life, passion, death, and resurrection.
All of this is for us, for you, for me.
To anyone who suffers from a lack of self-worth,
these are powerful, healing words.
The single, most powerful spiritual insight we can ever have
is that God loves us, that God loves all of our brothers and sisters,
that God loves the creation.
Ultimately, Lent is all about God's love for us in Christ,
God's passionate desire that we live fully, joyfully,
in his presence, even in the midst of suffering.
How easy it is to slip into living as if God were absent!
This is all pretty general, the big picture.
But today's readings from the prophet Joel and Matthew's Gospel
are direct and specific.
They urge us to fast, to join our hunger with those who are without enough food.
They call us to give alms, to help those who have little or nothing.
They urge us to pray,
to pray alone in our rooms
but also to join the community in Eucharist.
We need the nourishment of the word proclaimed
and the body and blood of Christ to get up when we fall.
We need Eucharist and prayer as a source of spiritual resilience.
We need to praise God for the gift of the Holy Spirit
and the call to conversion.
This season of Lent is never an end in itself.
It is about leaving behind the sin the clings so closely,
leaving behind habits of mind, body, or heart,
that diminish our sense of being daughters and sons of God.
I want to loop back to where I began,
with our effort to celebrate God's saving work during the season of Lent.
Years back, when Brother Willie worked with novices
in the wood shed and he could no longer lift very well,
he would say, "you lift, I'll grunt!"
In our human situation,
the Holy Spirit always does the heavy lifting, we grunt.
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
March 1, 2006
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