Comment on the Collect for Ash Wednesday
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 Church has traditionally prepared for Great Feast of Easter by observing a period of fasting and penance lasting for 40 days, not counting Sundays, which are themselves festivals of the Resurrection. It recalls Jesus's time of fasting in the wilderness preparing for his public ministry. During the period, Christians reflect on where they fall short of what God intended for them when He created them. Through an enhanced program of spritiual discipline--usually including self-denial, more prayer, and confession and spiritual direction--we seek closer communion with God and amendment of life.
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent. On this day, many of us recite more complete forms of confession and litanies, and 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 cited above.
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," find that we dare not hope to reform or change, dare not hope to be the unusual old dog who can learn a new trick:
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, our hope for 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 uncomfotable enough that we pay more attention to things we usually like to avert our attention from.
As the Collect reminds us, it is God who does the real work in Lent-- He creates in us new hearts able to feel sadness at our failings (that's what contrition means). It is God who makes us able 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."
In the name of Christ, Amen.
PENITENTIAL PRAYERS FOR LENT
(-AAH)
Almighty and eternal God, who drew out a fountain of living water in the desert for your people, as they well knew, draw from the hardness of our hearts tears of compunction, that we may be able to lament our sins, and may merit to receive you in your mercy.
Latin, late 14th century; The Oxford Book of Prayers (OBOP) no. 344
O God our Father, help us to nail to the cross of thy dear Son the whole body of our death, the wrong desires of the heart, the sinful devisings of the mind, the corrupt apprehensions of the eyes, the cruel words of the tongue, the ill employment of hands and feet; that the old man being crucified and done away, the new man may live and grow into the glorious likeness of the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
Eric Milner-White, 1884-1964; OBOP no. 346
God in Heaven, you have helped my life to grow like a tree. Now something has happened. Satan, like a bird, has carried in one twig of his own choosing after another. Before I knew it he had built a dwelling place and was living in it. Tonight, my Father, I am throwing out both the bird and the nest.
Prayer of a Nigerian Christian; OBOP no. 347
O thou great Chief, light a candle in my heart, that I may see what is therein, and sweep the rubbish from thy dwelling place.
An African Schoolgirl’s Prayer; OBOP no. 351
Lord, for thy tender mercy’s sake,
Lay not our sins to our charge,
But forgive what is past,
And give us grace to amend our sinful lives,
To decline from sin, and incline to virtue
That we may walk with a perfect heart
Before Thee now and evermore. Amen
--William Farrant or John Bull
No comments:
Post a Comment