Abbot Caedmon Holmes, O.S.B.
Ash Wednesday Homily - February 25, 2009
Today we begin the forty-day season of penitential preparation for Easter which is called Lent.
The vestments the priest wears are more somber in color, to express an attitude of remembrance of sin, an attitude of desire to improve one's obedience to God, an attitude of petition to him for the help of his grace.
In the Biblical readings of the Mass God is speaking to us. Today's first reading is a passage from the Old Testament prophet Joel. "The day of the LORD" is approaching like a dark storm, like a hostile army, like an earthquake. The LORD is urging his people as a community to proclaim a fast and to do penance before him, begging for his mercy: "for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment."
The entire people is invited to participate in the penance, even newlyweds, even babies. The priests are to lead the people in penitential prayer. There is to be fasting and weeping and mourning. But the people are admonished to make their repentance real, an act of the heart, not merely the outward tearing of their garments as a pretended expression of a spiritual distress that they do not in fact feel. By the way, there is a word for this spiritual distress, which arises from a consciousness of sin and regret for it. The word is "compunction," a Latin word, meaning stinging or piercing, as in being stung to the heart by the realization of one's guilt.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus recommends to his followers sincere alms-giving, praying, and fasting, performed for God to notice, but not for human show. These, along with spiritual reading, especially Bible reading, are traditionally the basic practices of Lent. Catholics resolve at the beginning of Lent upon some practices which they will try to observe for these 40 days, by way of rousing and refreshing their consciousness of what Christ has done for them in his suffering, death, and resurrection, which will have its annual solemn commemoration for three days at the end of Lent, culminating in Easter.
What he did for us has to be understood in terms of sin. Without a sense of sin, the Christian religion would have no meaning. Sin means that I have done wrong and am guilty, not that I was young and curious and made a mistake, or that my parents mistreated and disappointed me and so I couldn't help going haywire, or that everyone was doing it, so I did it, too, and it's not that big a deal.
I knew it was wrong, but, out of fear or greediness or not wanting to stand out and be different, I did it anyway. I knew it was right, but, out of laziness or selfishness or meanness or cowardice, I neglected to do it. A glance at the newspaper on any particular day reveals the fact that the human race is, on the whole, riddled with sin. But sin's prevalence does not in any way excuse it, or mitigate my own personal guilt. Moreover, when I make up my mind to try and do better, I find that I'm apt, for every one step I take forward, to take two steps back. Experience shows that cleaning up our act and living sin-free is impossible to us on our own, without divine help, without what we call "grace."
The second reading, from St. Paul, says that God "made him who knew no sin (that is, Jesus) to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." Our crucifixes and paintings of Jesus crucified come nowhere near the actual horror of what he submitted to. He was treated as the worst of criminals, as if he were the very embodiment of sin, of everything which is wicked and wrong and abhorred by the human race. God allowed this horrible death to happen, so that, by being immersed through faith and Baptism in this Paschal Mystery of Jesus crucified by us and for us and raised for us from the dead, we could be turned into the very goodness and holiness of God, what would have been absolutely impossible for us by our own efforts.
Psalm 51 from your Old Testament is today's Responsorial Psalm, and it's perfectly fitted to the Lenten spirit of repentance from sin. In the refrain to the Psalm, we sing in the first person plural, "Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned." But the words of the psalm itself are in the first person singular. Personally I ask him--each one asks him--to have mercy on me, to wipe out my offenses, to wash me thoroughly from my guilt, to cleanse me of my sin. I acknowledge my offenses. I acknowledge that it is against him and him only that I've sinned, that it's in his sight that I have done what is evil. I ask him to create in me a clean heart, to renew in me a steadfast spirit. I beg him not to cast me out from his presence, or to take his Holy Spirit from me. I beseech him to give me back the joy of his salvation, and to sustain a willing spirit within me, to open my lips, so that my mouth may proclaim his praise.
I ask him to create for me a clean heart, a heart fit to be in God's presence, a heart fit for God to take up residence in. God alone is able to create, that is, to make something out of nothing, completely new. And judging by what he has done for me in the death and resurrection of Jesus, I get a sense of how much he desires to do just that: to turn me into God's own goodness.
From these passages of Scripture we see why Lent is such a good time. St. Paul says, "Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation." So let us decide now to turn to God. Let us promise him that we will try to listen to him and to do something special to please him during these days of Lent, to allow him room to act in us. Putting it in St. Benedict's words from the Rule: "Let us offer to God—over and above what we have to do—something extra, of our own free will, in the joy of the Holy Spirit: less food, less sleep, less unnecessary talking and joking around; and let us look forward with the joy of spiritual longing to the holy feast of Easter."
The ashes (made from the palms from last year's Palm Sunday) which we will now put on our heads as a sign of repentance remind us that we are ashes, and are going to return to dust. This is true of everyone, and you do not need to be Catholic to recognize it. Accordingly, everyone—Catholic or not, Christian or not—is welcome to come forward to receive the ashes which we are now going to bless.
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