Reflections for Ash Wednesday

Most early daily Masses have only a handful of churchgoers. Yesterday, however, most seats were taken as many who came for Ash Wednesday were reminded, "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return." (Gn 3:19). "Memento, homo ... quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris."

Ash Wednesday ushers in this year’s Lenten season, when believers observe and remember the life, passion and crucifixion of our Lord, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. In contrast to joyous Christmas in December, silence, reflection, fasting and abstinence are encouraged for Ash Wednesday and Lent.

Just as love, the message of Christmas, should not be celebrated and practiced only for a day in December, Lent also calls for repentance and belief in God’s redemptive love to be remembered and lived each day throughout the years.

Birth at Christmas, passion and death during Lent. The contrast is crystal clear--showing people happy and joyful with Christ’s birth and silent and sad with Christ’s death.

Yet the message of Lent is not death and defeat. Rather, Christ’s crucifixion meant life, victory, over sin, over death. While mortals are dust and will return to dust, mortals who believe and follow God are raised from dust and reconciled, reunited with God in His eternal home up above.

How to go beyond dust back to God? These reminders are from Mark 12:30: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” They are also reiterated in Matthew 23;37: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. “

Our hearts and mind and strength may give up one day, but our soul never will. Our soul will forever witness the answer to our lifetime prayer: “One thing I have asked of the LORD, this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and seek Him in His temple.”

The message of Ash Wednesday, then, is not only a reminder of death, of our mortality. It is, more importantly, a message of eternal life, of God’s continuing love and redemption, of His promise to bring us back to Him after we have surrendered our mortal life, as dust, to join Him forever in His eternal home.

Lent reminds us about this immeasurable love of God the Father who sent His only Son to save us. Lent reminds us how Jesus Christ obeyed, became mortal, suffered and died on the cross that we might all live forever with God, that we may receive immortality with God!

Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are pilgrims here on earth who are heaven-bound, meant to live forever in our eternal home, back to and with God. Lent reminds us about God’s love and His grace intended for everyone’s redemption and salvation, beyond mortal death, beyond everyone’s return to ash, to dust.

God made us in His image and likeness and therefore, we are, like Him, with His grace, blessed to live beyond dust, beyond mortal death, with God in His dwelling place, forever!