Following and growing during Lent

By Tim Trainor

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030522.cfm
Isaiah 58:9-14 
Luke 5:27-32 

Of all the days on the liturgical calendar, Ash Wednesday is the third most popular (behind Christmas and Easter). There is something about it that touches all of us on a fundamental level and it is not unusual to see churches full of people who come forward to receive ashes.

The season of Lent is set aside for us to reorient ourselves, to gain the proper perspective on things and put our priorities in order. We must take off our old self's so we might be properly prepared for the Paschal Mystery.

The ashes typically are imposed with the words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” while the sign of the cross is marked on the forehead. This speaks to both humility and exaltation, of death and new life. The ashes signify our inner fragility and poverty, and the cross our salvation by way of the mercy of God is Good News for us!

”You are dust” are the words that God said to Adam (in Genesis 3) after “forming the man out of the dust of the ground and blowing into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). At the start of Lent, we go back to the beginning so that we might go forward to redemption.

We are invited to see ourselves as dust again — to detach ourselves from the things of this world and empty ourselves so that we might be filled instead with God's “breath of life.” That is, with his eternal Spirit. It is a time to be converted to the very holiness of God as we pray, “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me” (Psalm 51). We engage in penitential practices like abstaining from food and charitable giving from our material goods.

In Genesis 3:19 we find: “To dust you shall return.” Although in creating mankind God has lifted us up from our lowly origin, I believe that this scripture cautions us against pride. 

All our earthly goods are destined to be lost. Everything we have, all our worldly possessions, will one day turn to dust: just as the great ancient empires of Egypt and Babylon, Greece and Rome have crumbled.  And, more to the point, one day each one of our bodies will fail and die.

But there is good news here too that often is overlooked by us on Ash Wednesday! All this is part of our preparation for heaven. The things of the temporal order are necessarily temporary and will all be for naught. But if we recognize our humility and empty ourselves, putting the Lord before all else, we receive infinitely more than we fear we might lose.

I believe that it is in this salvific perspective that these words of Genesis are repeated in the Ash Wed liturgy, inviting us to an awareness of our mortal state and our need for penance.

For by his Cross and Resurrection, though we be only dust and ashes, we will be made a new creation.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (better known as: G. K. Chesterton) lived 1874 to 1936. He was an English writer, philosopher, Catholic lay theologian, and literary critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox.” Time magazine commented on his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories after first carefully turning them inside out." 

1. [From my Army days] “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him”.

2. [As a Dad & Grand Pa] “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed [or tamed and then maybe even ridden upon!]”.

3. “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people too seriously”.

4. “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people”.

5. [Last and best] “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried”.  

Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown and wove apologetics into the murder mysteries that he then solves. You can still catch one of the 300 episodes of 'Father Brown' on BBC TV. His more serious works include Heretics (1905), Orthodoxy (1908), The New Jerusalem (1920) and The Everlasting Man (1925).

Chesterton brings something in particular to our discussion: When asked his age — Chesterton had the interesting habit of basing his answer on the amount of time that had passed since he last went to confession — so he might reply that he is just a week or 3 months old. He did this for evangelistic purposes, how one is Reborn in the Sacrament of Confession. The one who was dead, because of sin, has come back to life, clean, remade in God's own image; returned from a far off country like the Prodigal Son; or is made brand new as a “Child of God.”

Lent is a penitential season. Our Lady of the Woods Church is having a Lenten Penance Service March 31 at 6 PM. Don't miss your chance to re-start your Spiritual life clean again!

Pope Francis expressed great sadness at the worsening situation in Ukraine, and recently asked world leaders to “Make a serious examination of conscience before God” on this matter. He has also called for all people to fast for peace today on Ash Wednesday and to pray that, “The Queen of Peace will preserve the world from the madness of war.” Please consider adding this to your prayers during Lent.

“The Calling of Saint Matthew” in the gospel is an example of how God can work through us to evangelize no matter what our occupation.

Note that the results of this call are identical to what we saw Peter do when Jesus called him back in Luke 5:11. Peter, James and John left all and followed Jesus. Levi does the same thing. He immediately got up and left his vocation setting. He left all, like Peter, and followed Jesus.

As you recall, at this time Jews who were tax gatherers were considered to be traitors, so the depiction of the clashes between Matthew and other Disciples shown in the movie “The Chosen” is spot-on. As was also the eventual love and acceptance from the Disciples, and most of all, the immediate forgiveness from Jesus that Matthew received!

The Pharisees questioned Jesus. "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered with: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance".

Jesus explained why He was treating them as brothers in the same family of God. He came to unite the dispersed people, to reintegrate those who were excluded, to reveal that God, His Father, is not a severe judge who condemns and expels, but rather a Father who forgives, accepts and embraces the penitent. This message comes to be known as the Good News of the Kingdom God.

When you are sick, what is it you do? You go to the doctor. You seek out help. You expect him to give you medicine or tell you something to change in your life style that will help your health improve. So it should be too with sinners like us except now. The Doctor of the Soul is found in the Confessional!

Jesus' reply makes it clear (and teaches us): recovery, not quarantine, is His desire.

Jesus pictures himself as a Doctor who treats the sick, not the strong. His is in accord with the Pharisees' correct judgment on the conduct of the Tax Collectors, but He does not endorse the Pharisees' self-righteousness. Jesus teaches us: Those who know they need help will respond to Him, the Physician.

“Not all of us can do great things,” Mother Teresa said, “but we can ALL do small things with great love.” Thus, a secret daily sacrifice ordered toward the virtue we most struggle with; a charitable gift of any size; the sacrifice of some pleasure for someone with whom we are fed up; the reallocating of time spent on a usual pastime to pray a rosary for all those who don't pray at all, these are all some simple yet meaningful practices we can offer with great love during this season of Lent. 

How do we ensure that we truly do have great love? A simple and sincere intention to unite our own small hearts to Christ's Sacred Heart, which is filled with his great love, is all that it takes, because: remember that God is Love! We may run out of love but He will not! So, Sacred Heart of Jesus, imbue all that we say and do with your own great love this Lent. We offer it all for your glory and the salvation of the world.

Thomas Merton said, “And yet Ash Wednesday is full of joy. In a minute we will sing and go barefoot to get ashes on our heads to remember, with great relief, that we are dust. The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust. Remember that God is all our joy and in Him our dust can become splendor.”