Ash Wednesday
Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of the season of Lent. On this day, we have priests impose ashes on our foreheads in the sign of the cross as a sign of penance. The Book of Common Prayer's Collect, or Prayer for the Day, for Ash Wednesday is as follows:
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Collect provides succinctly the theology and belief that must lie behind any authentic practice of the Lenten Fast.
Most of us, like T.S. Eliot in his poem "Ash Wednesday," dare not hope to reform or change:
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
But as the Collect says clearly, our hope for amendment and closer communion with God, our hope for hope itself lies here: God does not hate anything that He has made. No matter how far we are from what God intends, no matter how much we have distorted the image of God that God placed in us in creating us, no matter how twisted we have become and what bad use we have put to God's gifts, God forgives and heals. But this grace can be accepted by us only if we are sorry for our misdoings, and the start of such sorrow lies sometimes merely in only being desirous of being sorry for our misdoings. This provides God something He can grab onto as he struggles with us, works with us, forgives us, and heals us.
The journey we set out on in Lent is a path on which we let that desire work in our hearts and become sorrow for our misdoings. We let the silly disciplines we impose on ourselves ("no meat," "no alcohol," "no sweets,") make us uncomfortable enough that we pay more attention to things we usually try to ignore.
The journey we set out on in Lent is a path on which we let that desire work in our hearts and become sorrow for our misdoings. We let the silly disciplines we impose on ourselves ("no meat," "no alcohol," "no sweets,") make us uncomfortable enough that we pay more attention to things we usually try to ignore.
It is God who does the real work in Lent-- He creates in us new hearts and enables us to have the right feelings about our failings ("worthily lamenting our sins"). As we begin this journey, let us remember the words spoken to Everyman and Everywoman in the story of the defection of humanity in Genesis 2-3, spoken as we were expelled--through our fault, not God's--from the Garden of Delight where we are what God intended: "From dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."
--Fr. Tony+
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