Homily for Ash Wednesday: Rending both our garments and hearts

 Homily for Ash Wednesday 2021

Joel 2:12-18; Corinthians 5:20-6:2 Luke 5:27-32

Introduction

Angels, human beings, dogs; all three are living beings that God created.  But only one of them needs ashes, needs signs; and that is us, human beings.

·        Angels are spiritual beings only; they have no bodies and so they don’t need signs like ashes or any rituals for that matter.

·        Dogs are material beings only; they have no souls; they have no spiritual nature and so cannot understand the meaning behind signs.

·        We human beings are in the middle; because we have both souls and bodies, we are both spiritual and material.  And that is why we need signs, which are material things, but which point to and represent non-material things, spiritual things.

Even in ordinary life, for example we have the flag, national anthem, civil rituals to represent the nation; we have family rituals as well.

As Catholics, our most important signs are the sacraments and other rituals like today’s ritual of imposing the ashes.

Scripture and Theology

But because we are caught in the middle, being both spiritual and material beings, there can be a tension, regarding how far to go in either direction.  For too much focus on the material and we have ritualism; and too much focus on the spiritual and we have spiritualism.

This tension is represented in the readings chosen for today’s Mass.  In the first reading the Prophet Joel is very adamant that the people have to fast.  “Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning” says the Lord. The Prophet goes on to tell Israel: “Blow the trumpet in Zion!  proclaim a fast, call an assembly.”  And to this assembly everybody had to go, even the elders, the children and nursing babies.  The bridegroom and bride also had to suspend their marital rights, for this business about fasting was really serious.  And the priests had to pray: “Spare, O LORD, your people.”  Moreover, the Old Testament is full of many other such passages, like the book of Jonah, which call for fasting as a sign of repentance.

But then we come to the New Testament, and Jesus seems to downplay this call to fasting.  In one passage when the Pharisees ask him why his disciples don’t fast but their do, he responds that “As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast” (Mk. 2:19).  And in today’s passage says: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.” And so, we might ask ourselves: Lord what do you want us to do?  To fast or not to fast?  To put ashes on our foreheads, on our heads or none at all?

But this is only an apparent contradiction.  The Lord wants us to use rituals, signs, even external actions like fasting. But he wants us to have the right balance between the outside and the inside, the material and the spiritual, the sign and the reality it signifies.  That is why teaches how we are to do the three traditional penitential acts of almsgiving, prayer and fasting:

For Almsgiving he says: “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before  you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others.”  He wants our almsgiving to focus more on the spirit of giving rather than on the external action and praise that we receive for it.

As for prayer he says: “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.”  He wants our prayer to focus more on that inner devotion to God rather than the external words and rituals of our prayer.

As for fasting, he says: “When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting.”  Even our fasting must focus on the inner deprivation than externals.

Christian Life

The restrictions that we have put in place this past year to protect our vulnerable brothers and sisters have more than ever helped us realize how important the inner side of our rituals and signs compared to the externals.

·        While our family rituals that represent our familial love and mutual care, like gathering for birthdays, holidays and Mardi Gras has been changed, hopefully we have not stopped loving each other, but have found other ways besides these rituals to show that love.

·        While our access to the sacraments has been limited, hopefully the fountain of God’s grace has not stopped flowing through other ways like private prayer and personal devotions.

·        While our ways of worshipping God have had to change, such as sitting apart at Church, not sharing the sign of peace, not sharing from the chalice, and today, a different way of receiving the ashes, I hope that our inner devotion to God has not been diminished.

Today we are going to use a method of imposing ashes that until now has not been customary in the USA.  We are used to putting ashes on the forehead in the form of a cross.  But for about a thousand years the practice in the Mediterranean area has been to sprinkle ashes on the head.  This year we shall also adopt that practice to limit exposure to COVID-19.

This change might disturb some of us, since as human beings we don’t like change that much, especially change that affects our spiritual lives.  But we can rest assured that the more important thing to worry about is what those ashes represent, our conversion, not the manner in which we receive them.

In fact, the same words will accompany our receiving of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  These words come from Genesis 3:19, where God pronounces sentence on Adam for his sin, telling him: “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken . . ..”  And then he concludes: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  In these few words God describes what the fate of man is: a life of toil and suffering ending up in death, until the Saviour comes.  That is the same message we are asked to hear when we receive the ashes, a reminder about our mortality, a call to repentance.

Conclusion

And so this Lent, like the rest of our Christian life involves both external signs and something spiritual happening inside us.  And unlike the Pharisees, for us, the two parts, the external and the internal must be in sync, in harmony.

Almsgiving: Are we going to share our material possessions with those who are less fortunate than we are, privately or through the Lenten campaigns that support Catholic Charities which helps the poor within the USA, and Catholic Relief Services which does so abroad?  And don’t forget the missions of Uganda; my people need a lot of help during this COVID pandemic.

Prayer: Although prayer is something that we do every day, during Lent are we going to kick it up a notch, saying prayers as a family, before and after meals, perhaps the rosary, coming to daily Mass?  Shall we go to confession?

Fasting and abstinence:  We are asked to fast by giving up all food and drink, so that in that experience of hunger, we might know what the deprivation of the poor man Lazarus means and what total dependence on God is.  We also abstain from certain foods or pleasures, so as to set our sights on the greater pleasures of God.  How much fasting and abstinence are we going to do?

As we return home today with ashes on our heads, and as we begin to carry out our Lenten almsgiving, prayer and fasting, let them not be empty signs, but signs pregnant with meaning, external representations of the devotion, conversion, repentance, helping us grow more faithful to the gospel.

And then at Easter, we shall joyfully celebrate our destiny, our dying and rising with the Lord.  For we are not angels who already enjoy God’s presence; for we are not dogs, who don’t have a spiritual nature; we are human beings, who need these material signs to help us on the road to our spiritual home heaven.