Sometimes it Causes me to Tremble

 

The Fifth Sunday of Lent

20-21 March at St. Mary’s in Salem

Jer. 31:31-34

Heb. 5:7-9

John 12:20-33

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        With the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we begin Passiontide, which has two Sundays. It is our proximate preparation for the high holy days of the Paschal Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday). This first Sunday of the Passion is usually noted by people in parishes that still observe or have recovered the grand old custom of veiling crucifixes and statues. Covering up the statues is supposed to help us focus more attentively on Jesus in every aspect of all that He suffered for our salvation. This is our start to what climaxes in the unveiling and veneration of the Cross in the Liturgy of Good Friday, when the priest sings, “This is the wood of the Cross on which hung the Savior of the World!” And the congregation responds, “Come let us worship!”

The Second Sunday of the Passion will be next Sunday; we call it Palm Sunday. Besides the blessing of palms to remind us of the procession by which Jesus entered triumphantly into Jerusalem and took possession of its Temple, on that day the Passion account from one of the Synoptic Gospels is read with great solemnity. Again, with reference to Good Friday, that is the day for the whole Church to proclaim the Passion account from the Gospel of St. John.

Very simply stated, for Passiontide then which starts today, we work to focus on all that Jesus suffered for our sake, even unto death, death on a Cross. We seek to stir our hearts to love for Him and sincere repentance for our sins, which contributed to His terrible suffering.

        In our Second Reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews we read:

        “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

        This obedience of Jesus even unto death on the Cross must be understood as a terribly radical thing. It cost Him dearly and reminds us that following Christ, being a faithful Catholic, is going to cost us. It will cause us suffering, as well.

        We just heard these words from St. John’s Gospel:

        “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.”

        Meditating upon the sufferings of Christ between now and Holy Thursday should touch our hearts and fill them with love and awe of the Son of God made Man, for Jesus, Who took on the heavy burden of the Cross. The Passion of Christ involved so much pain and ultimately an excruciating death. He did it for us that once again, as before the fall of Adam and Eve, the gates of Heaven might be opened, such that once we pass from this earthly scene, we might by the grace of God enter into the joy of everlasting life.

        It is not too late to jumpstart your Lent. You can still make yours a good Lent. In all seriousness, use this Passiontide to break your hard heart and surrender all you have and are to the Lord Who loved you even unto death upon the Cross!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

The Sign of Contradiction and Just Punishment

 

The Fourth Sunday of Lent (LAETARE)

13-14 March 2021

at St. Mary’s in Salem

2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23

Eph 2:4-10

Jn 3:14-21

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

As a boy of high school age or maybe as a young man in college, I can remember being sort of embarrassed and annoyed that I had never learned how to quote Bible verses like some protestants do. The way they would shout out chapter and verse, “John 3:16!”, would infuriate me. I kept internally protesting this behavior and asking myself what sense does it make to shout out numbers? Wouldn’t it have been better to memorize the verse and repeat that?

(John 3:16) “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Let it also be said from a thoroughly Catholic point of view that this lovely verse should never stand alone; it deserves a context. I cannot just take this verse from John’s Gospel and make of it what I will. On this Laetare Sunday, our Sunday for lightening up and rejoicing in the midst of our Lenten penance, there has to be more to this quote. Why has the Church chosen to focus on John 3:16 today? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Our first reading today from the 2^nd Book of Chronicles can help explain the choice of this iconic verse, which should inspire joy and bring us consolation. Let me quote from our Old Testament reading!

“Early and often did the Lord, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.”

God in His great love chastises us for our wrongdoing, for our failure to respond to His messengers. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “chastise” as “to punish or criticize someone strongly”. The punishment visited on God’s People to which 2^nd Chronicles refers was the destruction of Jerusalem and its great Temple, looting the whole place and carrying the people who survived the massacre off into Babylonian captivity. “Punish strongly” might be considered an understatement in this regard. God chastised His faithless people. Our wickedness or hard-heartedness before God must have consequences for us just as Israel scoffing God’s prophets had consequences in their day and time.

Read John 3:16 against that background if you will!

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

The Chaldeans carried the Jews off after crushing Israel and then 70 years later King Cyrus of Persia, called on the people to return home to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple.

Could you or I find ourselves living somewhere on this timeline of chastisement and blessing? Why not? Should we be fearful of punishment for our sins before a just God? Why not? The qualitative difference between Israel and us, Christ’s Church, is really not all that great. Granted, Chronicles speaks in a prophetic key.  Our Savior is not an earthly lord, like the great Cyrus, the king of the Persians. We have deliverance through Jesus, the Christ, God’s only Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Cyrus called Israel to restore true worship in Judah, their homeland. Jesus puts us on the way to our heavenly homeland, establishing not a brick-and-mortar temple in Jerusalem but worship of the living God in spirit and in truth.

Our second reading today from St. Paul to the Ephesians explains it so: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ – by grace you have been saved -, raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus…”

Apart from the Church providing us with a broader context, note too that our Gospel today does not limit its quote to verse 16. The passage read from St. John today starts with verse 14 and goes through verse 21; the Gospel quotes Jesus explaining God’s mercy toward His people in the context of the bronze serpent set up in the desert by Moses, declaring that image to be prophetic of the Son of Man lifted up on the Cross, “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Death-dealing crucifixion in Christ Jesus brings life, brings salvation.

The coat of arms of the Diocese of Sioux Falls has two principal elements: first, the bronze serpent on the cross (inspired by the French explorers use of the word “Sioux” meaning snake). This was a reference to the Dakota or Lakota tribe they found living here when they came; second, the wavy blue lines of a waterfall add the reference to the falls on the Sioux River, so important for the commercial development of our see city back then. In 2004 at my episcopal ordination, I took that coat of arms for my own. I changed it a bit, shifting the serpent and cross from the center to the top field and dividing the bottom field in two, using the falls to recall our baptism into Christ and adding a third field, namely that of Mary’s Star, as a tribute to the Mother of God.

Without its proper context, John 3:16 does not probably have much more to say to a person than just shouting out the numbers. Its proper context has to do with Israel’s chastisement in the desert, offering life through the unlikely symbol of the bronze serpent. Because of our sins, we dare not expect other of God than due punishment. Nonetheless, we place our hope in Him, “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ – by grace you have been saved…”

So, John 3:16 on Laetare Sunday, a time for us to rejoice in the mercy of God, who did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him up for all of us!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God

 

Third Sunday of Lent

6-7 March 2021 at St. Mary’s in Salem

 Ex. 20:1-17

1 Cor. 1:22-25

John 2:13-25

 Praised be Jesus Christ!

    “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

    “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Words from St. Paul to the Romans!

  In this Sunday’s first Reading, we just heard the Ten Commandments proclaimed from the Book of Exodus. As we know from elsewhere in the Old Testament, the commandments were for God’s Chosen People not only a heavy responsibility to be lived out in their daily lives, but they were also a boast, a source of pride, because they indicated the wisdom of God, the Giver of the Law. ATTENTION: with the New Testament that changes.

    “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

        If we had to sum up what makes the New Testament different in 10 words or less, that would be it. “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

        As precious as the 10 Commandments are to us as a rule of life, we read them as Catholics in the light of the person and mission of Jesus Christ. Jesus, Our Lord and Savior, is our unique point of reference, the one and only absolute authority for us in our lives. Through His Church, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, we come to know Jesus and His Will for us.

        For Christians, focusing our lives on the Lord has always been tough, even back in the time of St. Paul, but I get the impression that it is even harder today, because in the Western World at least religiosity has fallen on hard times. The challenge to live the Christian message was never easy (Hence the words of St. Paul: “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,”). The conflict or scandal here has to do with the exclusivity of the person and message of Jesus Christ. The 10 Commandments are guideposts, but to invest study and obedience in them alone is not enough. Jesus, true God and true Man, must take center stage in our lives; He must animate my living the Law. My attachment to Him is what breathes a soul into the Law and thereby into my daily living.

Of course, the situation in the world today would be much better, less dramatic, if people started with the 10 Commandments, if they truly held to God’s Law. The Law is foundational; it is where we start; it prepares the way of the Gospel and opens our hearts to Christ. Sadly however, in our day a general lack of respect for God’s Law puts us at a disadvantage in terms of knowing Christ. We must deal with our disadvantage, with that loss of appreciation for good old-time religion, by which I mean the best cultural Catholicism has to offer. Religiosity does not seem any longer to be the binding thread which holds society together, as indeed it did for millennia and up until just decades ago. This type of religiosity applied not only to Catholics but to all the other groups who are party to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Sadly, today none of these groups or institutions seems to count for much in our secularized world. You get the impression that people nowadays think it quaint that for most of human history a given people was not considered a people at all, that a culture was worthless if it was not somehow built up on God. God and His Law for all of history was what made a people blessed. Divine precept established a people and gave it something to be proud of. That was true of the Old Testament and since the dawn of the Christian era has gone radically farther and been thoroughly personalized; the Son of God has taken center stage. The Law is anchored in Jesus, the only Way, the only Truth, and as such the Life of the world.

        It is in that sense that we understand today’s Gospel. Jesus drove out the buyers and sellers, with all their wares, Jesus drove them out of the Temple. He took over and established right order in God’s House, the House of His Heavenly Father as He said. He spoke then of the true Temple, not of stones and mortar, but the Temple of His Body, which His enemies would crush on the Cross, but that He would raise up from the grave in three days. In the era of the New Testament old-time religion reaches fulfillment in the person of Jesus, God made Man.

        Question! How is your Lenten time of prayer and penance going? Is it helping you to open your heart to our Lord and Savior, allowing Him to command in your life? My message would be: Do not be shy of that possibility! Do not be ashamed of choosing the very best for yourself personally, and by your witness and good example for the world around you as well. Start with renewed attention for the Law which can bring you genuine wisdom, but do not stop there! Turn your life over to Christ! Let Him reign in your heart! His is the power and the glory.

        “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Lenten Attentiveness to God's Will for Us

 

Second Sunday of Lent

27-28 February 2021, St. Mary’s in Salem

 

Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18

Rom 8:31b-34

Mk 9:2-10

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        In the Second Reading today we hear from St. Paul:

        “Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us, who will condemn? Christ Jesus it is who died – or, rather, was raised – who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”

        Divine advocacy! God Himself pleading our cause! The world to which St. Paul refers in his letter to the Romans is often quite foreign to us in our everyday life. The priorities of people even within the community of believers have changed in recent times. Basically, while some people out there today are worried about being judged or condemned by God, it is not the prevailing sentiment in Christian society, as a lot of people are not focused at all on the coming judgment. For that reason, many people experience no particular sense of relief in receiving the assurance that God is on our side and will see that we are not condemned.

Yes, it is too often the case that people are anxious about societal approval, but when it comes to eternal salvation, they are just plain indifferent or dull. This indifference to the things of God and to the prospect that at the end of our days on earth we will have to answer before Him is a characteristic of practical atheism, defined as living, thinking, or behaving as if God did not exist or, at any rate, somehow did not really count.

        If that sounds too brutal, let me say it another way. It is hard to imagine a lot of people in the Western world troubling themselves over the demands of discipleship – over what it means to follow Christ or to be caught up in a relationship with the Almighty. A felt need to sort things out and get them right with God, such as we experience of Abraham in the Genesis passage for today or in Jesus’ concern for his three chosen disciples in St. Luke’s account of the Transfiguration are not what move people generally in society.

        “Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.”

        Our Gospel today recounts the great mystery of our Lord transfigured in glory conversing with Moses and Elijah! That mysterious and awe-inspiring event took place up on one of the highest elevations in Galilee, in this case on Mount Tabor. Our Old Testament reading from the Book of Genesis recounts another mountain top experience, namely that of Abraham and his only son Isaac, up on Mount Moriah. On both summits, those chosen by God are given prophetic insight into His plan for them and for the life of the world. Both events sort out the scandal of dealing with a God requiring the sacrifice of an only son. On Mount Moriah the Almighty gives back Isaac to Abraham without taking his life. He does so in recognition of Abraham’s readiness to obey the Divine Will. On Tabor God reveals to Peter, James and John His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, in Whom all that was written in the Law and the Prophets finds its fulfillment. Death is to be swallowed up in Christ’s death and everlasting glory is His for the sake of the life of the world.

         “Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us, who will condemn? Christ Jesus it is who died – or, rather, was raised – who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”

        It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly the forty days of Lent fly by. We are on the Second Sunday of Lent already and it could be that you have not even sat down to make a plan for this season of penance and prayer. It would seem for the most part that the Lenten culture of my childhood and the world which most of us old folk experienced a good sixty years ago has gotten lost. Back then Ash Wednesday hit and (bang!) no more candy, no desserts, no movies and on and on. If your parents belonged to the school which taught that Sundays did not count as days a penance, maybe then on that day once a week, you got a treat. Under that regime (say what you will!) you could not forget Lent. You were always thinking about your Lenten obligations, which meant that God was in your thoughts, and for better or for worse, that you were praying. Back then, weekly Stations of the Cross for the children of the parochial school at the end of a school day were a fond memory of a prayer we could really get into and which (be it noted!) got us out of the classroom a half hour early on that day.

        Did that kind of regimentation necessarily guarantee that we could better focus on what we ought to be about as God’s chosen ones, as His adopted children in Christ? Maybe yes, maybe no, but I do think that practical atheism was not as much an issue as it is today. The sacrifice of Isaac on Mont Moriah demanded as a test of Abraham by God certainly had our father in faith tied up in knots. Abraham had to sort out God’s will for him. It seemed totally out of touch with God’s promise to make him the father of many nations, and then all of a sudden, to reclaim as a burnt offering his only son Isaac, the one who should be the bearer of this promise. Peter, James and John, representative of the whole first community of the disciples of Jesus had to be prepared for the scandal of the Cross, of God claiming in death His only begotten Son, Whom His followers professed as the Messiah, God’s Chosen One.   

        If you still have not made a plan to do something special for Lent, especially in terms of some kind of penance or mortification, then do so today. Find a reasonable way to intensify and improve your life of prayer.

        Not too far from my home in Sioux Falls is one of those national barber franchises. They want you to use their app to see how long your wait is going to be for a haircut and log in online. It works pretty well! For the Sacrament of Penance, I have not yet seen an app to let you check your phone to see how long the confession line. My recommendation would be to get your confession in early now in Lent. So far on Saturdays at 4pm before Mass, I have not been exactly overworked. Last Wednesday after Stations I would have stayed as long as need be but no takers, and this coming Wednesday 3 March the same. March 10 and 24 are reserved for CCD confessions and March 17 the Bishop is coming for Confirmation, so do not put things off for too long or you may wish I had invented a confession-app. If you have a hard time accusing yourself of sin, it could be that you are a saint, but it could also be, that sad to say, you are a practical atheist… Think it over!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

The Road Less Traveled Through the Desert

 

1^st Sunday of Lent

February 20-21, 2021

St. Mary’s in Salem

Genesis 9:8-15

1 Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:12-15

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        As recounted in the Book of Genesis, the Church teaches that the rainbow given by God to Noah is God’s covenant sign to His People that He will never destroy the earth again by the waters of a flood. The rainbow was to remind Noah of God’s covenant promise; it is a pact with relevance also for us. Just as the obedience of Noah assured him and his family survival in the flood and a future in God’s new world, so we too can be assured and confident that the Lord will carry us if we respond in obedience to His call.

St. Peter taught that the flood prefigured our Baptism in Christ. Just as Noah and his family, with all the animals in the ark, came through the waters which otherwise brought death to the world around them, so through the waters of Baptism into Christ’s death we come to eternal life, our sharing in the glory of His resurrection.

        On this First Sunday of Lent, we can say that in our day judgment is being pronounced to punish for disobedience, as well as to reward those who are faithful to God’s commands. Noah listened to and obeyed God, hence he was saved, and his future destiny was forever bound up with the Lord. From the first chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel today, we hear that after His time of trial, those forty days He spent fasting and praying to His Heavenly Father in the desert, Jesus came forth from the wilderness to preach in Galilee: “This is the time of fulfillment.” He proclaimed. “The kingdom of God is at Hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Our annual observance of Lent, 40 days for doing penance and dedicating ourselves to prayer is to be lived after the model of Jesus in the desert, our preparation for playing a prophetic role in the world in which we find ourselves is grounded in our observance of Lent. Lent is after the manner of Christ our desert experience. It is not so much that a good Lent is meant to set us up to go around preaching like Jesus did, but that we faithful Catholics, by word and example in our family circle, at work and in society, through a fruitful observance of Lent, we are enabled to touch and transform the lives of those around us. The holiness of my life, my living by the commandments, profoundly faithful to the Lord, prepares me for the challenge of conquering Satan and winning our world for Christ.

You may object, I have done my best and have only sadness and failure to show for it. I am referring to the tragedy of loved ones or their offspring, who do not practice the faith of their Baptism, who have abandoned the faith we tried to share with them as they were growing up. This is a great heartbreak for the Church, especially for parents and grandparents who did their best to share the precious gift of Catholic faith with their children only to have them walk away, showing no appreciation for our gift to them. It is with profound sadness that we many times must endure the rejection of that faith which is so very dear to us by those whom above all others we so wanted to rejoice in that gift which makes all the difference in our lives.

Lots of years ago, maybe a generation or two back in time, it was not uncommon for parents to disown adult children who no longer practiced their faith, who were what we call “fallen away Catholics”. Why did they react so sternly toward their children who had fallen away? For some families it was simply a matter of pride and for others a genuine terror that a grown child or an adult brother or sister had cut ties with the Church and therefore with the living God. These unfortunate souls opt for life without God. Years back, it was unthinkable that people would knowingly choose to stay outside or abandon the ark of salvation and hence be lost in the flood. Today rather than condemn or ostracize them, we are more apt to blame ourselves for their rejection of Jesus Christ and His Church.

People today who abandon the faith are often simply conforming to the godlessness, to the materialism of popular culture. They are like the neighbors of Noah who thought he was some kind of a kook, building that ark far from any body of water. Binding ourselves to assist at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, confessing our sins with a certain regularity, holding to the Commandments, and letting prayer fill our lives often open us up to ridicule, because faithful Catholic behavior is indeed counter cultural. We are a minority voice, especially here in the Western world.

Let me limit my message to you to a simple exhortation: Renew your personal resolve this Lent to take the road less traveled, to strive to enter by the narrow gate, as Scripture says. Let me say the same thing using the image of the rainbow from this Sunday’s readings! In English we talk about one who “chases rainbows” as somebody who is constantly pursuing things that are unrealistic or unlikely to happen. I do not want you to do that. In recommending God’s rainbow covenant to you, I wish to recall the example of Noah’s obedience to God’s command. In doing so, I am going with the surest and best thing in the world, namely trust in God to carry us and bring us home to Him happy at the end of our days. I make my recommendation not only because it is the most reasonable, but also lest you be turned over to death and destruction.

 In the Old Testament, God told His Children, Israel in the desert, to choose life and not death. Think it over; ponder this option during your 40 days of Lent; let our loving Lord carry you through the storms of life to safety in His Kingdom!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Facing the Challenge of our Times

 

Shea, Monsignor James P.

From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age 

University of Mary Press. Kindle Edition. 2020. 

    I had mentioned to someone that it was my resolve to read this little book on Ash Wednesday and I got it done! It was well worth the time, as it is indeed thought provoking. Even so, I have my doubts as to whether it should be taken as the interpretive key for pastoral planning in the United States today. I just do not think that we are called to retool along the lines of imagining ourselves back in apostolic times or as if we were working out of the catacombs to be able to successfully proclaim the Gospel. Monsignor Shea, of course, does not say that and has no such pretense, but in the discussions I have heard so far, some people seem to want to go that route.

    It remains to be seen if the sin of hypocrisy best sums up what is wrong with the Christendom model for living the faith or being Catholic. Granted, apostolic mission demands fortitude. Without a major dose of courage, nobody is going to witness to the faith in our secularized society. Even so, there was more to cultural Catholicism; parochial schools, Sunday Mass, Forty Hours Devotions, monthly confession, parish bazars and bingo, plus the scores of religious vocations to missionary and apostolic institutes of the consecrated life sustained or accompanied something of real substance and life. An old Irish Dominican friend long deceased, told me that on his street in Northern Ireland, every other house could boast a vocation to the priesthood or sisterhood, back in the 1940's and '50's. Christendom may have sustained that surge, but again, the model or construct had its depth;  there was much more to it than an overarching and perhaps sustaining cultural model. Christendom inspired faith.

    Monsignor Shea alludes to the need for improvements in priestly formation for a very different type of ministry today. Personally, I am not so sure that the challenges have changed that much or that "Going My Way" or "Bells of St. Mary's" ever really caught the substance of the challenge to living out the priestly vocation better than a half century ago.

    Read the book for yourself and see what you can glean from it. The persuasive witness (Pope Paul VI) argument alluded to by Msgr. Shea has its merits, but it is not enough. There is more at play in evangelizing our world.

 

Call out a Fast! Gather All the People!

 

Ash Wednesday - February 17, 2021

St. Mary’s in Salem

Joel 2:12-18

2 Cor 5:20-6:2

Matt 6:1-6, 16-18

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        One of the neatest things about Ash Wednesday, which is how we begin our observance of Lent each year, is that Ash Wednesday is for everybody. Just like in Israel of old, when the prophet Joel announced his message in God’s Name, all are invited to accept ashes on the forehead. Ash Wednesday is a call to repentance from sin and it is for everyone from least to greatest.

        “with fasting, weeping and mourning” … “return to me with your whole heart” says the prophet on God’s behalf.

         Among God’s People both Old and New Testament there is no one who can stand blameless before the Lord, we all need to change our hearts. We all need to turn back to God; we all need to beseech Him to spare us and not punish us as we deserve for having played strange with Him. All of us old and young, adults, adolescents, children, even babies, to the extent that we can make choices, we all need to be forgiven by God for not having put the Lord at the center of our lives.

        “Gather the people, notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast.” For what purpose? To beg pardon of God, all of us and without exception.

        We do it by letting the priest smudge our foreheads with blessed ashes saying, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return!”

        It is not theater; it is not play acting. It is a prayer, a meditation on just how fragile, how tenuous human life is. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says – do not do penance for show! No, that is not the sense of Ash Wednesday. What we are doing is bringing home a fundamental truth using a powerful sacramental, namely blessed ashes. It should inspire us to do real penance in the next 40 days leading up to the great feast of Easter.

        May the Lord hear our prayer today and help us, all of us, to return to Him with our whole heart!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI