Dust is never proud

Ash Wednesday

Fr. Philip N. Powell OP

St Albert the Great, Irving, TX

Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. Rend your hearts! Not your garments. Where do we begin this pilgrimage of forty days? How do we get this time away started? Jump start your Lenten pilgrimage by acknowledging your dependence on God for absolutely everything. We are wholly unnecessary beings. Creatures of God's goodness. Our lives are fundamentally gratuitous – freely given – and graced at the root. Begin with humility and give God thanks for your life. If your Lenten pilgrimage is going to produce good spiritual fruit you cannot spend these forty days obsessed with sorrow, self-pity, and doubt. We deny ourselves always if we would grow in holiness, but this isn’t the kind of denial that looks like the public posturing of the Pharisees. Our Lenten denial is the self-emptying of Christ, that is, the work of doing daily what Jesus did on the cross just once. Lenten denial is about making our gratuitous lives sacrificial. And we sacrifice when we give something up and give it back to God.

Therefore, turn your heart over to God. Give your life back to Him. Repent of your disobedience, rejoice in His forgiveness, and then get busy doing His holy work among His people.

If your Lenten sacrifice is going to be just a pious public display, don’t bother with Lent this year. Jesus teaches his disciples that performing righteous deeds for show – fasting, giving alms – will win you nothing from our heavenly Father. He calls those who strut around showing off their piety hypocrites. It’s a show, pure theater. Nothing but a skit for public consumption. He says, “[…] when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting[…].” Jesus warns us here about our tendency to think that we’re doing something substantial by superficial means. Does that rosary around Madonna’s neck really mean she venerates the Blessed Mother? Does the cross of ashes most of us will wear today mean that we’re truly humble before the Lord? That we’re wholly given over to repentance, to a conversion of heart, and a life of holy service? If that cross of ashes is going to be a mark of pride for you today or a temptation to hypocrisy, wash it off immediately. If that cross of ash is going to be the sum total of your witness for Christ today, wash it off immediately.

Our Lord wants a contrite heart not an empty gesture. Our Lord wants our repentant lives not public piety. When you pray, go to your room and close the door. When you fast, wash your face. When you give alms, do so in secret. Rend your hearts not your garments.

The Lenten pilgrimage we begin today is an excursion into mortality, a chance for us to face without fear our origin and our end as dust. It is our chance to practice the sacrificial life of Christ, giving ourselves to God by giving ourselves in humble service to one another. Lent is our forty day chance to pray, to give alms, to fast and to do it all with great joy, smiling all the while, never looking to see who’s noticing our sacrifice.

Remember, brothers and sisters: dust is never proud.

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