We Cannot See the Ashes on Our Own Faces

Ash Wednesday + March 9, 2011

In our invitation to a Holy Lent, which we will hear in just a few minutes, the Church calls upon us with the following words:

I invite you, … to the observance of a holy Lent,

by self-examination and repentance;

by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;

and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.

Let’s look at the three things that we are asked to do:

penance, prayer, and action.

A man was standing near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall on the mall. He saw an older woman looking for a name. When she found it, she reached up and touched it, tracing the letters lovingly. Looking up, she saw the man and realized that he had been watching her.

“My son was killed in the war,” she said. “I come here to remember him whenever I can. He was an excellent student. He graduated at the top of his college class, made Phi Beta Kappa. He was also the place-kicker for the football team, and he helped them win a championship game by one point. After college, he joined the Army, and they made him a captain and gave him a job at the Pentagon. But he wanted to lead men in battle, so he volunteered to serve in Vietnam. One day, his unit was attacked by sniper fire. Several men were hit. My son dragged them all to safety before a bullet took his life.”

She paused a moment. “But the time I remember the best, the one day I would want to relive with him, happened when he was nine years old. He was playing in the living room and I was in the kitchen. Suddenly, I heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass, then silence. He came into the kitchen to me, holding the pieces of a bowl that had been in my family for generations. Crying, all he could say was, ‘I’m sorry, Mommy.’ I took him in my arms and comforted him. I wanted him to know he was forgiven. That was the most wonderful day of his life with me – the day he knew he had done something wrong, felt real sorrow for it, and knew the love of my forgiveness. I believe that the healing he received that day enabled him to accomplish all the other wonderful things that he did in his life.”

Penance is the act of

·        recognizing that we have sinned,

·        feeling regret for our actions and omissions,

·        saying that we are sorry, and

·        resolving to do better in the future.

Those four components must all be present. We have to set aside time to examine ourselves, our lives. We have to be willing to stop making excuses and admit that we have been wrong, that we have wronged others. It is no good to blame the others, to say they caused us to sin or they deserved what we said or did – it is our sin, and we must own it. We have to honestly regret what we did.

“God is not mocked,” Paul says in Galatians. [6:7] We cannot fool God and we cannot lie to ourselves. We must tell God that we are sincerely sorry, and often we must tell another person that same thing, which is usually more difficult.

Finally, it’s no good if we just acknowledge and apologize, we have to stop loving that sin and make every effort not to repeat it. Those are the necessary parts of true repentance.

Prayer is the second thing that we are called to observe during Lent.

When the disciples asked Jesus when they should pray, his answer was simple and to the point: “pray always.” [Luke 21:36 KJV]

The founder of my Order, Saint Dominic was fond of telling novices, “speak only to God or of God.” It’s hard to find time to pray, but that makes it all the more important that we do so.

And how should we pray? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave us the perfect prayer. If I may paraphrase:

Heavenly Father, your holy Name is the most sacred word we know.

We pray that your kingdom will come and your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.

We trust you to give us everything that we need today, especially the Bread of Life, Jesus, and teach us to be satisfied with what you give.

Please forgive us for the wrong we have done –  but only as much as we are willing to forgive those who have done wrong to us.

Help us stay on the right path and not give in to temptation, and when we face evil, be there with us to help us resist.

We know we can ask for all this because your Kingdom is full of your power and glory – it always has been, is right now, and always will be. Amen.

It doesn’t matter how, when, or where we pray: this season of Lent is the time to pay attention, to work harder at it, and to rejoice in the power of prayer.

Actions are an important part of our Lenten observance.

It is not enough to do the interior actions like repentance and prayer, if they don’t bear fruit in deeds. In our confession, we ask forgiveness for “what we have done and what we have left undone.” [Book of Common Prayer, page 360]

Lent is the time to work on those two kinds of actions: the things we have done and the things we have failed to do. Some of the deeds that we are expected to perform during Lent are listed as fasting, self-denial, and reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. Fasting used to mean not eating meat for the entire time of Lent. Today, there are other ways to deny our selves, our appetites, our desires.

Giving things up has always been one way to honor God during this holy season, but our Church asks us to balance giving things up with doing something extra. The perfect example that we are given today is spending time with God’s holy word – the Bible. We could also find holy reading in other books, magazines, and even TV programs, but the Bible should always be our primary source, our first choice when we want to listen to God’s Word.

Penance, prayer, and action – these are the things that God asks of us during these forty days and nights.

Shortly, we will be marked with ashes as a sign of our mortality (we came from the earth and we will return there). But it is superficial and meaningless if our hearts are not also marked with ashes. In Job’s day, wearing sackcloth and ashes was a sign of the deepest mourning.

At such a time, looking bright and beautiful was not appropriate. Wearing ashes soon became a sign, not just of mourning the death of a loved one, but of deep interior sorrow for sin and failures.

You and I cannot see the ashes on our own faces, so they must serve some other purpose. They are only visible to those around us.

We wear them to announce our own human weakness and to remind those who see us that they, too, suffer the same fate. We must all repent and reform our lives. We must all pray constantly, and we must all do the things that we know are right and stop doing the things that we know are wrong.

We began today with a prayer that reminds us of the realities of Lent:

God hates nothing that God has made – no matter how far we fall, God never hates us, God always wants us back.

God forgives the sins of all who are penitent. There is no sin that God will not forgive, if we are truly sorry.

We pray for new, contrite hearts, cleansed of the stain of sin and reconditioned to live a better life.

Psalm 51 says it so well: “create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” [Psalm 51:11] Cleansed and renewed, our hearts are ready to open up and share God’s love with everyone, everywhere.

The call is clear: penance, prayer, and action are the watch-words for Lent. They are the goal, the target toward which we aim. Like the mother comforting a little boy, God is reaching out to us with open arms, welcoming us, accepting our sorrow for sin, telling us we are forgiven, and giving us the strength to go forward and accomplish great things.

Yes, we came from the earth and we shall return to it, as the ashes remind us. But in the meantime, no matter how long or short our days, we have work to do – to show our love for God and neighbor, and to bring the Good News of God to everyone around us. As the hymn says so rightly:

Come, labor on! Who dares stand idle?...

to each servant does the Master say, ‘Go work today!’

Come, labor on! No time for rest …

til a glad sound comes with the setting sun:

‘Servants, well done!” [Hymnal 1982 #541]