Ash Wednesday – Years ABC
Joel 2:12-18 2nd Corinthians 5:20 – 6:2 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
In the memories of some older Catholics, Lent conjures up feelings of misery and unhappy seriousness. Please, please, let us work to dispel such ideas! Indeed, these tones and the (metaphorically) torturous ideas that went with them were real and difficult in the lives of some. The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (1962-65) ushered in an era of reform and renewal. By now (nearly half a century later!), a healthier and happier tone behind such reform and renewal ought to have impacted the popular practices of our Lenten practices. Remember that Lent (from the Latin word meaning “slowly’) is a liturgical season, i.e., it goes along with our public worship. Much of the world is oblivious to it (as much of the world was oblivious to Advent!), but thoughtful Catholics and many other mainline Christians have some awareness that the season is one of prayerful retreat, spiritual renewal, and personal reflection time in preparation to celebrate what we might call the Pashcal high holy days beginning with Palm Sunday. The week subsequent to Palm Sunday, called Holy Week, makes use of the Gospel narratives which find Jesus in Jerusalem for his final and fatal visit. He entered triumphantly and observed the Passover festival with his friends, but also (as the disciples appreciated only fully in hindsight) established his New Covenant with Good News for all! Thus will Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter, Easter Sunday and Easter Season all remind us of the various events, insights, and graces of the Redemption bestowed by God through Christ on the entire world. Lent asks us to annually effect a personal course correction towards the Paschal Mystery. If your memories of Lenten seasons past are memories of misery and unhappiness, please understand that deliberately embraced miseries and unhappiness are not virtues. Nor does the God of love whimsically inflict misery of any kind onto people. The Cross which Christ’s disciples often carry is necessarily accepted when encountered in order to bring about redemptive change, change for good and loving purpose. Joel, one of the “minor prophets” (i.e., one who’s message fills a relatively short scroll), probably ministered between 400 BC and 350 BC and was very connected with the restored Jerusalem temple. He preached in a warning tone of voice encouraging, even demanding, personal and collective, on-going repentance. Today’s first reading was Joel’s enthusiastic invitation to repentance and constructive renewal even he thought it was well past due. God’s mercy was still alive and active. From his cultural perspective, an important and socially accepted sign of genuine repentance was the ascetical practice of fasting (deliberately diminishing one’s food intake) accompanied by a visible change in life-style (alms giving and prayer). The Gospel passage from Matthew reflects on those ascetic practices of fasting, praying and almsgiving. The Gospel promotes them as signs of genuine spiritual life when they come from the very depths of the person. Fasting in the Jewish and Christian spiritual traditions is not about dieting, whether for good physical health or selfish vanity. Fasting is a spiritual and physical wrestling match one has with oneself. It is a matter of self-control and self-discipline. Paul considers self-control or self-discipline to be one of the seven classic “fruits of the Holy Spirit” (see Galatians 5:21-22). Nor was fasting done to subvert one’s physical abilities, but rather to sharpen one’s introspective abilities. A full stomach induces lethargy. Fasting requires your self-disciplined attention when your stomach says “feed me!” You must conscientiously choose whether to be master or slave of your stomach. The degree to which you are able and willing to invoke self-control determines which you are, master or slave. Prayer, too, is an important sign of deep faith. This particular prayer is not the prayer of desperation (indeed a legitimate and important prayer style!), but rather the willingness to deliberately engage in regular, conscientious, and on-going conversation with God as part of intimate friendship-building. Ostentatious prayer is ridiculed by Jesus, while praying in the privacy and secrecy of a trust-filled relationship with God is held in high regard. Almsgiving is thanks-filled generosity combined with genuine compassion for those in need, and a virtuous desire to share one’s blessings. Charitable giving out of obligation or embarrassment or even to gain a tax deduction can do good, but such motivating pressures diminish the virtue of sincere compassion. Alms giving is much more profound when one gives as God has already given: freely, lovingly, joyfully. A sharing of one’s substance rather than merely giving a portion of one’s excess is a generosity founded in Christ’s suffering and death on the Cross. And private, confidential, and even anonymous giving is very noble. Not to sound ungrateful or excessively idealistic, but the practice of publically naming donors in churches, schools, and other church institutions sounds a bit like attention-getting devices for the emotionally needy, or as Jesus might say, “Even the pagans do as much.” The most legitimate Gospel motives for giving are gratitude to God, a genuine love for neighbor, and a desire to do good because the good needs to be done. Before meeting the Risen Christ, Paul had been an over-zealous religious leader. He would have been called an extremist and a terrorist in the 21st Christian Century. After his Gospel conversion, he developed (and thereafter maintained) a super-sensitive awareness of how radical a change the Grace of God had brought about in him. He changed heart and mind, and every aspect of his life, because Christ personally called him to engage the Gospel. Even though he had formerly been absolutely certain that he was already doing God’s work, he later came to appreciate how his personal and obsessive zeal actually obscured and obscured God’s goodness. He realized that for the rest of his life part of his personal mission was to effect an on-going reconciliation and renewal between himself and the people of the Gospel. His way of demonstrating that God’s Grace was truly active and effective was to personally work to reconcile and heal his own relationships by how he preached the Gospel. He knew it was he who had to change, not God. He considered himself and all the baptized to be ambassadors of Christ. How he presented himself to others as Christ’s ambassador was at least in part how Christ himself might be perceived by those others. Thus, does each Christian’s face becomes the face of Christ; each Christian’s love becomes the love of Christ. In Lent, the words aimed at us include repent, reconcile, fast, pray, give alms, and retreat, and even rejoice. This is a season which must not cause anguish, but rather peace and balance. Self-inflicted misery is not healthy; rather it is likely very unhealthy. Lent is a season which promotes good spiritual and emotional health. Such promotion must be done in concert with a healthy and balanced Gospel message. It is preparatory for our annual experience of the Paschal high holy days. Choose only those Lenten practices which produce genuine peace in you! Happy Lent!