Ash Wednesday
March 5, 2014
12:15 PM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
Perhaps this year, more than most, Lent could be a conflicted
time for some of us. There is always a little bit of tension. You can
hear it the readings we have every Ash Wednesday. The Prophet
Joel begins each Lent with the classic Old Testament invitation:
“Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping,
and mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments, and
return to the Lord your God.”
Immediately afterward, Jesus repeats the invitation but with
his characteristic twists. Jesus says (and I paraphrase a bit): by all
means give alms, but don’t blow a trumpet before you so
everybody can see and congratulate you. By all means pray more.
But don’t play the hypocrite who makes a big deal about it and
wants to be seen. By all means fast. But for God’s sake don’t look
gloomy. Don’t do anything to make yourself look special.
Some of us—especially some Catholics—seem to prefer Joel’s
message. Be bleak! Be painfully and obviously sorry for all your
terrible sins, you wretch! Grovel and be miserable! Everyone will
be impressed. That’s the first potential conflict.
But this year we have another problem that is at least equally
conflicted. It comes to us thanks to a strange Argentine named
Francis. (Doesn’t a lot in these past few months seem delightfully
strange?) His first Apostolic Exhortation is titled: Evangelii
Gaudium. The Joy of the Gospel. And the title says it all. Francis
himself is almost infectious with his own joy—with children, with
young engaged couples, with newly married “clowns” in St Peter’s
Square, with the poor, and imprisoned, with the sick, and on goes
the list.
Next year Francis has proclaimed as a year to celebrate
Religious and consecrated life in the church. And he wrote a letter
to us all titled simply, Gaudete! Rejoice! And in it he writes of the
vocation of the whole church—but especially Religious men and
women—that you are to be “expressions of great joy in today’s
world.” That is your vocation.
He reminds us of the other side of Joel’s invitation, the one
Jesus highlights. Even the dust, the ashes here before us are
redeemed dust, redeemed ashes. It is with the sign of the cross
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that we sign ourselves. And that cross has already brought our
redemption.
I wish my old homiletics professor, Walter Burghardt, were
alive to hear Francis. Walter used to close his Ash Wednesday
homily telling the people: “For God’s sake, for the next forty days,
look redeemed!” That’s who we are: loved and saved sinners.
Savor the conflict if you feel it. Think of Lent as what the
French call an amuse-bouche. That is the little tiny course that is
served between the other courses in a very fancy meal. Sometimes
it’s a little bit of sherbet. The words literally mean to tickle your
tongue. Or we might say to cleanse your palate. Don’t just fast. Try
to get a fresh taste in your mouth for the next 40 days. Turn
yourself around a bit. That’s all the word “repent” means. Savor
whatever seems conflicted. But, remember, always look, and try to
feel, redeemed--for we are. Welcome to another Lent! Peace!
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