Ash Wednesday 2020

Lectionary: 219

Blow the trumpet in Zion!

proclaim a fast,

call an assembly;

Gather the people,

notify the congregation;

Assemble the elders,

gather the children

and the infants at the breast;

Let the bridegroom quit his room

and the bride her chamber.

Between the porch and the altar

let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep,

And say, “Spare, O LORD, your people...."

Recently, in a discussion about telephoning widows, sons, and daughters of recently deceased Veterans, the chaplains were advised not to initiate such calls. HIPAA regulations are engineered to protect patient information and confidentiality. Americans are dying of loneliness and we're prevented from speaking a consoling word by concerns about their privacy. 

Today's first reading from the Prophet Isaiah urges us to come out of our fatal privacy and assemble as the People of God. We are God's assembly, his congregation, the people whom the Lord has chosen to do penance for our sins and the sin of the world. 

No one does this alone. The Christian always prays as a member of the Body of Christ. The Catholic prays in communion with Mary, the saints, all the angels, and the entire Church, living and dead. 

Our Lenten practices are simple, as befitting a people from every part of the Earth. We might not agree on many universal forms of penitential expressions, but we can fast between meals and abstain from meat today, and on the Fridays of Lent. This universal practice expresses our solidarity first with one another, and then with those who have little to eat. Of course diabetics and persons with other health issues are exempt, but they should develop their own ways of participating in this universal practice. 

...And say, “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?’”

I often think of Abraham's failed attempt to save the "cities of the plain," Sodom and Gomorrah. Had there been fifty good people among them, for Abraham's sake, fire would not have fallen upon them, nor the column of smoke have risen from them. Even ten good people would have made a difference. But one man and his messy family could not do it.
"Fasting, and weeping, and mourning" are not solitary chores; we do this together.

"Spare, O Lord, your people..." We don't have to go far to discover the threats. If they only accosted our way of life, which changes beyond recognition every few months, we might ignore the threat. But we're looking at addictions to alcohol and pain medication, which afflict every class, religion, and nationality. And at suicide, an impulse that arises suddenly and unexpectedly among the apparently normal people. And at climate change, affected by anthropocene forces beyond anyone's control.
We cannot save ourselves. We can only beg God to spare your people and, with us, the whole Earth. 
Let us pray. 

Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his landand took pity on his people.