A Homily for Ash Wednesday 2007
The ashes that we use today are meant to remind of some important truths.
First, they remind us that we are sinners. Although we are the children of God, at the same time we are still children of this fallen world. Ashes are lifeless dust. Insofar as we still give in to our tendencies to selfishness and sin, we too are lifeless dust. Sin separates us from God, who is the source of all life. Without God’s redeeming spirit in us, we would have no hope of eternal life.
Second, the ashes reminds us that our sins, cause damage. These ashes are made from the palm branches we used on Palm Sunday last year. We waved the palms as a symbol of Christ’s victory over sin, however our sins forfeit that victory. Our sins destroy the life that God means us to live, just as the palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday were destroyed to make these ashes.
Most importantly, the ashes remind us that in spite of our sins, in spite of our deep-seeded selfishness, God has not given up on us. Christ is our Redeemer! He claims us for his own. We still have a mission in His Kingdom; Jesus still calls us to be His ambassadors.
Yes, we are marked with ashes because we are sinners, but the mark is given in the sign of Christ’s cross, which won for us the grace of a fresh start and a new life. We are marked on our foreheads because Christ Jesus wants us to go boldly into the world as his representatives.
This is what St. Paul is talking about in today’s second reading. The Christians in Corinth had just gone through a crisis which had divided their church community. St. Paul is worried about them, so he encourages them to be generous with Christ, to put their whole lives under His rule. “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!”
Each of us needs to hear that call. We must stop resisting Christ, and put our whole lives under His rule. We resist Christ in two ways. First, we take what does not belong to us. These are sins of commission, and includes dishonesty, greed, lust, and gluttony. Second, we keep to ourselves what we should give to others. These are sins of omission; when we hold back help, patience, kindness, and forgiveness, we fail to be like Christ. One sin of omission is so common that we do not even notice it anymore, but it causes untold damage. It consists in failing to be true to our primary mission as Christians, the mission of spreading the faith. As St. Paul put it, “we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.”
As we enter the Lenten Season, let us ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten our consciences so that we become more aware of how we have been resisting God’s call in our lives, and let us be moved to contrition. Let us ponder one of the phrases that can be said when we receive the ashes today, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”
[Due to the short, and busy, time from last Sunday and Ash Wednesday, this homily is largely paraphrased from one of the homilies for Ash Wednesday 2007 on ePriest.com]
