Today is Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of the forty-day Lenten Season. It has been celebrated since the 8th Century. Ashes has traditionally been a sign of repentance and mourning. The imposition of ashes is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church as well as the Lutherans, Methodists and other Protestant denominations. As we hear the words, "Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return," we reflect on our own mortality. We humbly acknowledge that we are only transients in this world and that heaven is our true home. As such, our material possessions which we may exceedingly cherish and boast of, will all be left behind. We leave behind all the trappings of our earthly existence when our mortal lives assume immortal dimensions. Naked we came into this world, naked we would leave it! Pope Benedict XVI in his Ash Wednesday homily today at the St. Sabina Church, a 5th Century Church in Rome, said, "Through the personal encounter with the Redeemer and through fasting, almsgiving and prayer, the journey of conversion towards Easter leads us to rediscover our Baptism. We are moved to free our hearts from the burden of material things, from a self-centered relationship with the "world" which impoverishes us and prevents us to be open to God and our neighbors." On this day, we focus on our own sinfulness and resolve to cleanse ourselves from all forms of sin. It brings forth the end of our "unrighteousness." With prayer, fasting and almsgiving highlighting Lent, we renew our relationship with God. We become more acutely aware of His Presence. We confess our many ways we have failed Him, our sins of commission and omissions. We converse with Him the way we do with our close friend, a confidante to whom we can pour out what is in our hearts without fear of rebuke. We can be our true selves without the "mask," the fascade we carry along with us in our everyday lives as we deal with our office mates or others. Lent brings us a greater awareness of God's Presence and also of what He wants of us. We begin to take extra note of the immediate world around us and of its needs. We are jolted into the reality of the need for identifying ourselves and working towards the call for being the "voice of the voiceless and the power for the powerless." Then we think about it, ponder on it some more and finally consider to do small concrete ways to become "God's hands and feet" in this fractured world.
As an addendum to this reflection, may I share with you my experience today? I attended the 6:30 PM Ash Wednesday Mass at the Divine Mercy Catholic Church in Sacramento, California today with my daughter Cielo and grandson, Joshua. The crowd which filled the church spilled over to the narthex, a big welcome area outside the sanctuary proper and to the outer porch. I inched my way inside the church up to the first row of standing worshippers. Immediately, I saw a vacant seat right at the edge of a pew only a few meters away. I was surprised why it had remained unoccupied despite its "prominence" and the milling crowd around. I looked at the people on my right, turned my head to the left and audibly said,"There's a seat," as I pointed with my left thumb. I believed they were entitled to it since they must have been there for some time. They looked at me, but nobody moved. So, I hastened to take the seat. I immediately gazed at the image of our Blessed Mother on the left side of the main altar and said, "Thank you!" Do you wonder why I expressed my gratitude to our Blessed Lady?
