HOMILY  - ASH WEDNESDAY
POOR CLARES, ST. ANTHONY’S, FURMAN U.
FEBRUARY 25, 2009 –9AM, 12NOON, 5:30PM & 7PM

 

May the Lord give us an urgency about returning to Him.

The word Lent means Spring.  In the Spring life returns to seemingly dead limbs and bare earth.  Hibernation and cocoons are evacuated.  The earth is turned over by a plant bursting up, given light by a trumpeting daffodil.

As nature has seasons, so do we, the Church.
This is our Spring, our return to life.  We spend the next 40 days in memory of Jesus’ temptation in the desert, of His sacrifice revealing our worth to God. We grow in appreciation of what Jesus has done in being faithful to us, that we might endure temptations, break dead patterns of living, give glory to God.

The word of God asks for the return of Spring.  A Spring in us.  Listen to the prophet Joel, “Return to me with your whole heart” and “return to the Lord your God.”  It is like the farmer saying to the field, “come back to me stalks of corn, bushes of cotton, rise up again and produce!”

“Be reconciled to God”  This is the acceptable time. 
We work a change in ourselves out of gratitude.

Remember the scene from the world trade center attack where the entire crowd emerged covered in ash?  This is an image that can help us as we walk around school, work in the neighborhood.  We are all leveled, made the same before God as we come forward to receive ashes.  The sign of ashes is for us, not for others.  I am remembering something about myself. 

If I am teaching you anything, maybe I am teaching you that I am a sinner in need of the loving mercy of God.  Say to an inquiry about your forehead.  “I am like dust, in need of the mercy of God.  This ash reminds me.”  But look around us at what God is doing with dirt!

During this holy season the Church sponsors acts of charity, prayer, and penance for sins.  People do the stations of the cross, daily Mass, confession, acts of self denial to remember the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

Penance is a concrete act which proves sorrow, writing a letter to a person whom we have been estranged from for a long time, not speeding, revealing new patience with others based on how patient God has been with us.

There is a recognition that God is calling us closer, so we take the steps we need to, breaking down walls we have put up.  But it is joyful. “Working my way back to you babe, with a burning love inside”.  It is a coming home.   The great return.  A soul’s Spring.   Good Lent.