Rend your hearts

Ash Wednesday (6 March 2019)

Joel 2:12-18. Ps 51. 2 Cor 5:20—6:2. Mt 6:1-6, 16-18.

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments.”

We begin the season of Lent today with the ashes. We remind ourselves that we are dust. Our Creator didn’t use gold, uranium, diamonds, or pearls when making the human body, but mere dust (earth). We were made from what is really ordinary, and we were breathed into life—something extraordinary.

We shall return to dust: in this material world we are temporary. Only what is spiritual is permanent. Though our bodies die, our spirits will continue live. In resurrection we shall continue to live, in glorified bodies.

We are dust, we are earth, we are the universe itself. We are earth that is conscious, we are universe that is conscious. This is the beauty and uniqueness of human beings. As St Paul says, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.” (2 Cor 4:7) We are special, but fragile. We are unique, but that uniqueness has to be realized day by day until we achieve the fullness. We are creatures, our real glory is to allow a free hand to our Creator within our souls.

We are not only earth dust, we are also star dust—as scientists tell us. We are meant for transcendence. We are meant for the stars. Our spirits cannot be contained to that which is finite, but they open us towards that which is infinite.

So our Lenten project of fasting, praying and caring has the aim of opening us to transcendence, within ourselves and within our community. This also aims to repair and restore our relationship from all the three angles: our relationship with ourselves (fasting, penance, self-denial), our relationship with God (prayer), and our relationship with others (almsgiving, caring for others).

In the gospel reading of today Jesus instructs that the above three pillars not be pretentious and hypocritical. “Whenever you give alms, do not have it trumpeted before you; do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret.” “Whenever you pray, do not be like hypocrites; go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” “Whenever you fast, do not look dismal; put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret.”

We need to do all these in secret. In the interiority of our hearts. And never for show.

Let this joyful season of Lent help us re-focus our attention on what is lasting, and help us give up whatever is unnecessary and harmful for us. In this way we can return to the Lord with all our heart, and accept Him fully to give meaning to our broken lives.