Ash Wednesday
14 February 2024

This holy season of renewal in godly life begins in distinctive fashion with the imposition of ashes. In a few moments, as ashes are imposed, you will hear the phrase: “Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” I really love how Lent begins with that phrase because I think it is so rich, so packed, with meanings that speak to us of aspects of our faith and salvation history.

First, it speaks to us of a reminder of our creation. That takes us to the Book of Genesis. Man was formed from the dust of the earth and God generously blew life into his lungs. That phrase is a reminder of mortality, and therefore the need for repentance, since we also know that the phrase comes from God’s words to Adam after the Fall. God spoke to Adam of the consequences of sin and that he would have to labor by the sweat of his brow to provide from the land for his needs. God said to Adam that one day he would return to dust and uses this very same phrase: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” This serves as a powerful reminder that there is a God and we are not Him. We bear the mortality that is a consequence of Original Sin and our personal sins. We will face judgment and so the reminder of being dust is also a call to repentance.

But there is still even more meaning packed into that inaugural phrase of Lent. It is not only a reminder of past creation or of the darkness of sin and mortality. We are a people of hope. We have hope in the Blood of Jesus in the New Covenant. And so, this reminder of creation, automatically carries with it a reminder of re-creation. God’s plan to save us from sin means that the Son has come in our very flesh to restore us, to redeem us, to usher in a new creation. The phrase calls to mind at one and the same moment, both creation and re-creation.

And thus, that packed phrase, is a call to us to go deeper in our life with the Lord. We are to repent of what keeps us bound to sin and the mortality of eternal death. We are to live in the new creation by growing in grace and holiness. That grace of being recreated by the Lord is something that must be seen and visible in us. That does not mean that we live grace in order to be seen. No. Rather, God’s Word tells us that grace must be made visible. In St. Paul’s Letter to Titus he writes that the grace of God “has appeared”, that is, been made visible, in Christ (cf. Ti. 3:4). If we are living in the new creation then likewise redeemed life must be seen in us too. It must be enfleshed in us. Holiness must be incarnate in us, following the model of the one who made us new. And so, Lent is a time for us to put on more fully, like clothing and vesture, the grace of redeemed life. We are to put on the life of Christ, the New Adam, who has refashioned us for a new creation. St. Paul writes in the Letter to the Ephesians, “put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24).

When we face all the meanings of that Lenten phrase, we know that we have divided hearts. We fall for sin and we remain attracted to it, even though the Lord has opened for us the way to salvation. The call of Lent is to shake off the slumber that speaks to us and keeps us living in sin, apart from God. We are to uproot those things that are sinful. And we need to be serious about the disciplines that will help us go deeper in our life with the Lord. I think the words of the first reading are so appropriate for this call to avoid being superficial but to seek deeper redeemed, recreated life. The Prophet Joel wrote the words of the Lord: “[R]eturn to me with your whole heart,… Rend your hearts, not your garments.”

Our campaign of Lent has begun. Our spiritual weapons, both the ones highlighted in Scripture and our additional personal penances and practices, help reform our lives so that we live less in the old ways of sin according to our fallen nature and live more as the new creature in Christ according to the life of grace.

Homilies