9 March 2011: Ash Wednesday

“A universal day of fast, ashes are distributed. (General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar)” The ashes used today come from the branches blessed for Passion (Palm) Sunday last year. (Fr James Socias, et al [Eds], “Daily Roman Missal”, 1989, pp158-9)

On the requisite dispositions for Lent

First disposition: ‘Humility.’ “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (cf Gen 3:19) Who uttered these words? God himself, some seven-thousand years ago. To whom did he address them? To Adam, our first parent, as soon as the sentence of death had been pronounced on him and his posterity in punishment for his sin--

“Because you have eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the earth in your work’, said the Lord. ‘In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return to the earth from which you were taken; for dust you are, and unto dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19)

Why did God add these last words, which do not increase in any way the punishment already given? Doubtless, it was to subdue and annihilate the pride of Adam; and inspire him with such deep humility as would dispose his heart to admirable penance.

Thus we see that Adam, who had begun to excuse himself, remained silent, but accepted the penance imposed; and persevered in it, humble, penitent, and resigned for nine-hundred years. This penance pleased God, and our first parent was saved by it through the merits of the future Redeemer.

We have sinned in Adam, we have sinned also; we are very guilty. We have great need of doing penance, of imploring pardon. God is ready to pardon us; but humility is the first feeling God seeks in the heart of a sinner and a conviction of his own unworthiness.

The first disposition then which we ought to achieve and in which to persevere during Lent -- a time of universal penance -- is a profound humility, arising from the knowledge of our nothingness and our sins. This must be the principal merit of our works of penance.

Second disposition: ‘Compunction.’ Who repeats the same words God pronounced in the Garden of Eden? Our holy Mother Church through her ministers. And to whom does she address them? To each one of us, to all the faithful who assemble in the house of God.

When? At the moment our foreheads are marked with ashes, the emblem of death and penance: as if saying, “O man, whoever you may be, remember you must die and become like this dust, because of sin. ... if you do not do penance for your sins, you will only rise again from the dust of the tomb to pass, in body and soul, into a place of eternal torments.”

The Church obliges us to listen to those grave and terrific truths only to inspire us, from the first day of Lent, with holy and deep compunction of heart. If our works of mortification and penance are accompanied by sentiments of true contrition and humility, they will be pleasing before God, for “a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps 51:17).

Lacking these attitudes, we ought to fear that all Lenten practices, even the most painful, will be useless.

Ref: Cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp80-82

Lent, a time for coming closer to God

We are at the beginning of Lent, a time of penance and interior renewal to enable us to prepare for Easter. (cf Second Vatican Council, “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, 109) The Church’s liturgy unceasingly invites us to purify our souls and to begin again.

“Yet even now”, says the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2:12-3)

As the priest places ashes on our forehead, he reminds us of the words, after original sin. ‘Memento homo, quia pulvis es ...’ “... remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19)

Remember! Despite this reminder we sometimes forget that without God we are nothing. “... all that remains of man’s greatness is that little pile of dust, in a dish, at one side of the altar, on Ash Wednesday. It is what the Church marks us with ... as though with our own substance.” (J Leclerq, “A Year with the Liturgy”)

God wants us to be detached from things of the earth and return to him. He wants us to abandon sin, which makes us grow old and die, and return to the fount of life and joy.

“Jesus Christ himself is the most sublime grace of the whole of Lent. It is he who presents himself to us in all the wonderful simplicity of the Gospel.” (John Paul II, “Ash Wednesday Homily”, 28 February 1979)

To turn our hearts to God (conversion) is to be prepared to use all the means to live as he expects us to live: absolutely sincere with ourselves and try not “to serve two masters” (cf Mt 6:24). We must love God with our whole heart and soul; flee from any deliberate sin.

Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 2:1-2

The Spirit of Love and Sharing

The time of Lent was given to us as the Church and through the Church, to purify us of residues of egoism, of excessive attachment to goods ... which keep us far from those with the right to make claims upon us: chiefly those who, physically near or far from us, have no possibility of living as men and women with dignity, as humans created in the image and likeness of God.

So let yourselves be permeated with the spirit of penitence and conversion-- ‘the spirit of love’ and ‘sharing’. In imitation of Christ, bring yourselves close to the poor and those whom the world rejects.

Take part in everything being done in your local church, for Christians and all people of goodwill to be able to bring each of their brethren the means, even the material means, for living worthily, for undertaking their own human and spiritual promotion and that of their families.

May the Lenten collections (for poor countries as well), give you the means to help local churches in even poorer lands through sharing, so they may achieve their mission of being Good Samaritans to those for whom they are directly responsible: the poor, the hungry, victims of injustice and those who cannot yet be responsible for their own development and their own human communities.

Penance, conversion: this is the ‘path’, not a sad but a ‘liberating path, that of our time of Lent’.

If you still ask yourselves, ‘Who is my neighbor?’, you will read the answer on the face of Christ and hear it from his lips: “I assure you, as often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me.” (Mt 25:40)

Ref: Cf Pope John Paul II, “Prayers and Devotions”, 1994, pp147-8

• Foundation of Savigny, in the diocese of Avranches, in Normandy, in honor of the Blessed Virgin, about the year 1112, by the Blessed Vitalis, hermit, who was its first abbot. — Gallia Christi, t. iv. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com)
• Foundation of Savigny (Normandy) in honor of Our Lady. (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
• Our Lady of Savigny (France, 1112). (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.html); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
• “Notre Dame de Savigny”. France. 1112. (www.marylinks.org/MaryCalendar.htm)