From reflections of Father Damian Kearney

On Ash Wednesday when we formally begin the holy season of Lent, symbolic ashes taken from the palms used in the Palm Sunday procession of the previous year are placed on our foreheads in the sign of the cross: a particularly apt reference to our redemption through the crucifixion, uniting as it does the idea of victory in the palm and sacrificial death on the cross.  This sign is the liturgical way of distinguishing us as followers of Christ, as members of a church which extols humility as an honorable badge, not as the token of weakness it conveyed to the pagan world of Jesus’ time and to our own secularized society.  Ashes are the most appropriate way of putting us into the spirit of the Lenten season, serving as they do to recall the many themes which the liturgy evokes at this time:  the transitory state of created existence on earth as we are reminded that just as we in Adam were formed of dust, so too will we return to that condition after our brief passage of life.  We remember that in one sense the triumphant moment of glory accorded to Jesus when he was hailed as Messiah on Palm Sunday was more ephemeral than the palms held by the crowd of onlookers, eager to hail their version of a triumphant victor over the Roman occupying military force, rather than his imminent conquest over sin, Satan and spiritual death.

Lent can be conceived of as a type of pilgrimage, during which we are given the opportunity to assess our spiritual condition., a time to measure the progress we are making or intend to make during the next forty days. We begin our self-evaluation with ashes imprinted on our foreheads in the sign of the cross, a reminder or foreshadowing of  Calvary as the direction toward which we are moving; not the goal, but the means by which we achieve Lent’s goal: the experience of the Paschal mystery, reaching its climax at the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Each day during Lent the liturgy gives us specific scriptural readings which help to clarify the mystery of redemption, providing us with a better understanding of ourselves and of the sacrifice that has been made on our behalf.  Lent can also be a time when we deepen the knowledge of our faith and at the same time our relationship to God through a  host of diverse ways designed to help,  sustain and support us as we make our way back to Him from whom we may have strayed and perhaps at times to have felt that we have been abandoned and forsaken.

Ash Wednesday gives us a program that will sustain us spiritually for the whole of Lent  Admitting that we have, in varying degrees and innumerable ways, turned aside from God’s law and His commandments, we endeavor to turn back to Him with renewed fervor and determination.  through the traditional, heart-felt signs of repentance:  fasting, giving alms, and offering with sincerity the sacrifice of a contrite and humble heart through prayer. In  Joel and in Jonah we find recourse to sackcloth and ashes as a way of indicating inner conversion to  God who has been neglected or abandoned altogether. Joel advises the people to rend your hearts and not your garments with fasting, weeping and mourning. For the Lord, your God, is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. And the Lord did have pity on the people and responded to their appeal.