March 4, 2022
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on Ash Wednesday on March 2, 2022, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 5:20 – 6:2; and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18.
Ash Wednesday is a day to acknowledge the fragility of our lives. All things are constantly changing. Youth is fleeting. Health is tenuous. Even our material possessions and relationships are impermanent. Ash Wednesday is merely a day. It kicks off the season of Lent, in which we search for true meaning, for treasure that lasts.
We begin Ash Wednesday like the Jewish people who faced a locust plague in the time of Joel more than 2400 years ago. We proclaim a fast and call an assembly. This year, Pope Francis has asked all people of good will to fast and pray for peace in Ukraine. Later on, we will mark our faces with soot, recalling that our time on this earth is limited, and that God calls us to greater things than the pettiness of sin.
Our opening prayer, our first reading, and our psalm, and our receiving of ashes invite us to sit with the discomfort of our frailty and our sinfulness.
[After the psalm, but before the 2nd reading:]
We have reflected on our sinfulness and on our mortality, but the purpose of Ash Wednesday is not to leave us there. Ash Wednesday is merely a moment in the season of Lent. St. Paul now invites us to begin again the process of growing in our relationship with God. After all, the word “Lent” comes from an old German word meaning “springtime.” We are already on the cusp of spring in Texas. Within a few weeks, the bluebonnets will be in full bloom, reminding us that as long as we are alive, there are countless opportunities for us to reconcile with God.
[after the proclamation of the gospel:]
Lent is a season. Every time it comes around, we are in a different phase in our lives. In my lifetime, I’ve had Lents of weeping, Lents of rejoicing, Lents where I have taken on heroic sacrifices, and Lents when it was all I could do to carry out the bare minimum. And then, we’ve had collective experiences of Lent as a community. In Lent 2020, our plans were radically changed by the pandemic. Lent 2021 began with many of us fearing for our lives in the Texas energy crisis.
So, on this day when we mark our faces with dust, I offer three sets of prompts for our consideration. Please recall that while Ash Wednesday may be a day to reflect on our sinfulness, the season of Lent is about focusing on our growth.
Prompt #1: Perhaps Lent 2022 is a time to simplify. At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of us thought that the changes in our routines would allow us to get organized or take on some projects that we had long postponed. And for many of us, that simply didn’t happen. It wasn’t necessarily that we were unmotivated or lazy. We learned that there were a lot of factors holding us back. Rather than being super-creative this year, perhaps 2022 is a year to concentrate on the basics of Lent. The basics of Lent are fasting, almsgiving, and extra prayer. And each of these three things should have a community dimension to them. If I give something up for Lent, how does it benefit others? For example, the purpose of not eating meat today and on the next 7 Fridays is to give the money we save to the poor! Our almsgiving should be more about helping those with less, rather than making a sacrifice. And with the worldwide day of prayer for Ukraine today, Pope Francis reminds us that our extra prayer should not be exclusively about our relationship with God as individuals.
Prompt #2: Perhaps Lent 2022 is the perfect time to try to soften our hearts. One of the great scripture passages associated with this time of year is from Ezekiel, where God promises to the people who have endured destruction and exile: “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts” (36:26). Far too many of us have gotten through the past two years by hardening our hearts. Rather than grieving everything we’ve lost, we’ve toughed it out. Rather than focusing on our social-emotional needs of ourselves and our children by everything that’s changed, we’ve concluded that we – and they – need to work harder. Perhaps Lent 2022 is the time for us to re-learn how to be vulnerable.
Prompt #3: Perhaps Lent 2022 is a time to reconcile with someone from whom we’ve become estranged. The Lenten Sunday readings this year focus on reconciliation. The gardener gives the barren fig tree extra love and attention. The father welcomes back the prodigal son. The woman caught in adultery is not stoned to death, but simply invited to sin no more. As Jesus dies upon the cross, he promises paradise to the repentant thief. Let us identify not only how we are like the fig tree, the prodigal son, the adulterous woman, and the repentant thief, but also how we can be like the gardener, the father, and Jesus. And in any way that we are like the landowner, the older brother, the Pharisees, or the mocking crowd, let us change.
Ash Wednesday is not a day to dwell on our sinfulness and our mortality. It is a day to use that awareness as a springboard to new possibilities, to new aspirations, to new life. There is absolutely no need to decide by Ash Wednesday what we’re going to give up or what we’re going take on as part of our Lenten disciplines. And even after we decide, let us be open. As Jesus said, the wind blows where it wills. Sometimes, the insights I receive from the Holy Spirit throughout Lent lead me to a very different place than where I intended to go at the beginning of the season! And this year, as mask recommendations begin to loosen, may we see one another face-to-face in new ways!
This Lent, may we simplify, soften, and reconcile. In the words of St. Paul: Now is a very acceptable time. Today is the day of salvation.