ASH, SIGN OF THE NOTHINGNESS OF MAN.

February 17, 2021
Ash Wednesday - B.

Readings: Jl 2:12-18; Ps 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17; 2 Cor 5:20—6:2; Mt 6:1-6, 16-18.

A Sicilian proverb says, “Repentance washes away sin.” A Swedish proverb adds, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the Lord does not understand you, the devil must.”

From nothingness to nothingness, dust to dust, ash to ashes, such is the profound symbolism that hides the rite of the imposition of ashes that opens us at the time of Christian Lent. From this day, the Christian people of the Roman Catholic denomination are embarked on a forty-day’s journey which will end with the celebration of the mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Lent, as the Holy Father Francis so aptly mentioned in his message this year, is a time of ascension, a going up to the Easter Mountain. “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem” (Mt 20:18). Just as Jesus invited his disciples to walk with him up to the Holy City, so we too begin this ascent to the mountain of our Salvation, the Golgotha ​​where the Lord will give his life for us. It is a walk animated by the virtues of faith, hope and charity and made actual in the exercises of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

A key element of this ascent to the Lord's Easter is that of conversion. This prompts us to focus our meditation on the reality of ash and its importance to us. A word accompanies and marks the rite of the imposition of ashes, “Remember that you are dust and that you will return to dust”. This first word gives meaning to the other: “Repent and believe in the Gospel”. Because we are ashes and that to ashes we will return, we have no other obligation than that of a qualitative and categorical change in our life. Conversion is a requirement and a necessity in our relationship with God. For us Christians, the imposition of ashes is above all a penitential rite. Through this rite, we are invited to be more attentive to the Word of God, to love God and our neighbor better, to recognize our faults and to do penance through privation. It is this set of all these attitudes that we call "Conversion", in other words a "Change of course!".

In life, we change our course in a situation only when we realize who we are, where we come from and where we are going. Whoever does not know where a road is leading him cannot speak of a detour or a U-turn.

Ash is an outward sign of repentance, a mark of someone who, having become aware of his nothingness, decides to humble himself and to amend his behavior. In the Holy Scriptures, ash speaks a very strong language. Already in the book of Genesis, ash and dust take on the same meaning. God brought us out of the dust of the earth. We therefore find there the idea of ​​"you are dust and you will return to dust". To Adam and Eve after their disobedience, God to banish them from the garden sends them back to the earth, the idea of ​​dust to dust (Gn 3:19).

With the prophet Jeremiah, the Ash takes on the meaning of a sign of mourning and repentance. We read for example in Jer 6:26: "Daughter of my people, cover yourself with a sackcloth and roll yourself in the ashes, mourn as for an only son, shed tears, bitter tears!” This same idea crosses Jer 25:34 and expresses the regret, and the pain for the acts committed. In Daniel 9:3, it is a question of fasting and ashes. The most eloquent expression comes from the book of the prophet Jonah with the people of Nineveh. Jonah 3:6. We read that after the prophet’s proclamation, “The thing came to the king of Nineveh; he rose from his throne, took off his cloak, covered himself with a sackcloth, and sat down on the ashes.” Lowering oneself, humiliation, regret, with a view to conversion and forgiveness. The ash of this fact expresses and sums up the Lenten message. It's time to go to our sources, to go back to the origins.

Man is ashes... With the current COVID-19 pandemic, this language is no longer a myth for anyone. How many of our loved ones have been cremated and leaving only a jar as their remains. People between 75 and 100kilo are reduced to an urn that a 6-year-old child can carry alone. From this situation, a lesson for all, our material goods and possessions are nothing in the face of the reality of death. As someone said, "Life is nothing. Only death is worth anything, and it costs life." As a result, Lent sounds the strong message to let go of yourself and all that surrounds us in order to attach ourselves only to God. Since we are ashes, let us therefore seize this time to convert ourselves and return to the source of all life, God our Creator. So here is the time for the true spiritual ascent to God. May our deprivations of this time, our fasting, our prayers and our alms open us to serve God in our most needy brothers and sisters.

As practical actions for this Lent, building on the message of Pope Francis, let us make our Quaresma sacrifice this year a time to learn to speak the truth and to live in the truth. Let us fast as a way to learn "to welcome the Truth and to become witnesses to it", before God and men. Let us practice Fasting as a means of "freeing our existence from all that encumbers it, even from this overflow of information, true or false, and of consumer products to open the door of our heart to those who come to us, poor in everything but "full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14): The Son of God the Savior. Let us practice fasting as a path to living hope. May our fasting and our privations open us to charity, the ultimate expression of faith and hope. And finally, with and through our sacrifices we offer “with our alms a message of confidence” to the needy, telling them that they are not forgotten by God and by society.

Finally, this voice which resounds for you and me: “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” (Jl 2: 12-13). So, let's finish with this Chinese proverb: “Every kind of wood is grey when they are reduced to ashes.”