Homily for Ash Wednesday 2007
We live in a culture that has some profoundly depersonalizing forces
that work against putting a high value on human persons.
To name them: we are capitalist, consumerist, and individualist.
Without denying the positive and creative achievements
of our culture in science, medicine, entertainment, music
our culture tends to erode personal worth.
What do I mean by "eroding personal worth?"
So much in our culture puts the worth of a human being
in the externals: what I own or earn,
what I produce, how I look, how I perform.
The day to day pressures for efficiency and productivity,
the pressures to do more with less, or just to do more,
restrict our time with others who matter to us,
who are part of our personal identity and worth.
In the larger culture,
what does this erosion of personal worth look like?
It goes from capital punishment to abortion, to euthanasia,
to our willingness to make war,
our inability to get restrain our consumption,
or our all too ready dismissal of the starving and poor in the world.
Lent is a time to reclaim our own sense of personhood
who we are in the presence of God,
and our relationships with those who are close to us
and with human beings who are further away.
We can do this Lenten reclaiming through discipline.
The word discipline is immediately connected to
and necessary for discipleship.
We need discipline in our lives to follow Jesus,
to live the Gospels.
The root of the word discipline is discere, to learn.
All of us are learners in one way or another,
and we need discipline to provide the context for learning.
If we are not learners, we are in the cemetery.
I would like to suggest three disciplines
that will enhance our sense of our person
and the person of others.
First, the discipline of spending time each day
in solitude and quiet
whether that is at prayer or Mass, or in my room.
No TV, radio, stereo, video games, I-pod.
Who am I?
Even twenty minutes a day can bring me to a deeper sense of myself,
of who I are apart from what I am studying,
what I am doing or producing or planning or fearing.
Apart from all of this stuff, who am I?
What is the gift that God has given me to share with the world
through faith, hope, and love?
Second, through this Lent take a weekly one-hour walk
with someone you care about--
out the old entrance road or out the back way,
or out to Stella Maris, or around the pine knob.
How easy it is to live our lives,
as students, as faculty, as staff, as monks
and not be in touch with the people who mean so much to us?
Once a week for six weeks, six people.
In the words of that African proverb,
"I am because you are."
I am lifted up by the Christ who is in you.
How better to understand the priorities in my life.
Third, give of your self in service,
whether to students who need your expertise,
or on a service trip, or a visit to old people in a nursing home,
or give of yourself in service to your confreres.
Service to others in humility and love
deepens our sense of connection to each other.
It makes us aware of the Christ in ourselves and in others.
We become aware of how incredibly fragile we are as human beings
and for that reason how beautiful
and what a gift this short span of years is.
Three disciplines to deepen the sense of our personhood
and that of others --
time each day for solitude, reflection and prayer
one hour each week on a walk with someone you care about,
and time for service to others --
three disciplines to deepen our sense of discipleship.
We will come to deeper sense of the Christ in ourselves,
and in each other.
Where you are there Christ is,
and where Christ is, there will be the Paschal Mystery.
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
February 21, 2007
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