An Ash Wednesday Homily

Today begins the season of Lent, a penitential season in the Catholic Church. The traditional penances we undertake at this time of year are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Why do we do these things? It’s not for outward show. Our Lord strictly warns against that in the gospel passage for today (Mt 6:1–6, 16–18). So why do we do them? We do these things because they, each in their own way, help us to make a return to the Lord. That is the point of doing penance; to turn our hearts back to God, who is our origin and our end. Without Him, we are lost.

The liturgical readings throughout the season of Lent are meant to drive home that fact. For the first half of Lent, the scripture readings given in the liturgy are all about loving our neighbor, acting with justice, freeing the oppressed, defending the downtrodden. This focus on loving charity does two things for us: it inspires us to act with justice, and it also reminds us of how often we don’t.

We fail to act the way we know we should all the time. We fail to treat others the way we know they should be treated all the time. Even when we want to. Why is this? It’s not because our hearts are filled with hatred toward others (at least that’s not the case for most of us). It’s because we are weak. We get tired. We care, but perhaps not as much as we should. Or perhaps we simply feel inadequate to tackle all the problems of injustice we observe around us. The world’s problems seem too big. We struggle too often just to see the dignity and worth of the person sitting right next to us; perhaps because we are not even certain of our own dignity and worth.

We don’t know how to love the way we should. We don’t know how to live the way we should. We fail at this. When we try to go about it on our own, following our own counsel on what is best, we fail. At some point we recognize that we need help.

And so, in the second half of Lent our liturgical readings make a turn. They focus less on a call to justice and more and more on the person of Jesus Christ. We are shown how He comes to heal us, to instruct us, and to forgive us. After being so poignantly reminded of our need for a savior, we are told that that Savior has come. This is the good news of Lent.

And so we do our prayer, our fasting, and our works of charity, to help us draw close to the Lord. By prayer, we make room in our lives for God. By fasting, we learn self-discipline. By our works of charity, we learn to think of others and to serve their needs. If we do these things well, they help us to become more like Christ.

But if we fail in them, that is also a success, because it reminds us that holiness and perfect love is not something we can achieve on our own, but something we can only obtain by relying upon the grace of Christ.

This is why we begin this campaign of prayer, fasting, and service with the sign of ashes. It is a public sign of our own sinfulness and a reminder of our mortality. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” This is all we are without Christ. But with Christ, we are more than dust. We are sons and daughters of the Lord Most High, redeemed by His Son who gave His life for us in a perfect act of love.

We don’t know how to love as we ought. That’s okay. Christ loves for us, and through us, and His love is sufficient. So let us “repent and believe in the gospel” this Lent; maybe for the first time, or maybe all over again. Let us repent — that is, make a turn toward God — and believe in the good news of His Son.