Ash Wednesday

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.

I once met a non-practicing Catholic who told me his grandson asked him, “What is Lent?”
“That’s when you have to give up something?” he said.
“Like what, Grandpa?”
“Like playing with your Lego blocks.”
I wonder what the grandson will tell his grandson sixty years from now. Will he remember the words Lent or Easter or The Love of God? Is it possible to know Jesus Christ without the practice of Lent?

“Spare, O Lord, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach, with the nations ruling over them! Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

Jewish history is rooted in Israel and the Holy Land, but most of Jewish history has been lived elsewhere. 

Likewise, the Church belongs to Jesus through his apostles, but we are spread throughout the world, aliens in alien territory. We speak the languages, eat the foods, wear the clothing and engage in the commerce of the world around us. We share some of their values and we engage in some of their rituals, but we are not like them. We are in the world, but not of the world.

Periodically we must pull apart from the world around us, and gather back into our homes and churches to remember who we are. We must ask God to renew the covenant and restore our innocence.

Today’s gospel tells us what we must do: pray, fast, and give alms. These were the traditional practices of the Jewish people, familiar to Jesus and his disciples.

• To pray is to pull away from the world around us and engage with our God. He is our joy and treasure, our delight and privilege. We are his people.
  
• To fast is to practice awareness of God in our bodies. Every religious tradition on earth has dietary practices. Jews and Muslims do not eat pork. Buddhists abstain from meat. Catholics, no doubt, will eventually restore our dietary practices as our Church is renewed.
  Given our hard experience, we can hope the disciples of Jesus will also refrain from tobacco and alcohol for significant periods of time.
  During Lent Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays, and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
  
• Finally, to express our gratitude, we give alms to the poor. This is also a sign of our standing as God’s chosen. Money given to the poor seems like  money down the drain. Poverty is a bottomless pit, but God’s providence is also bottomless. It is an eternal fountain, an inexhaustible cornucopia. That's why giving alms is such a perfect demonstration of faith.
  
  We give gratefully and generously because we can afford to -- and because we cannot afford not to.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday as we smudge ashes on our foreheads, fast, pray, give and remember who we are – God’s chosen people.

Then I looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. Revelation 14:1