ASHES

Ash Wednesday
Mt 6: 1-6, 16-18

Today is Ash Wednesday. The holy season of Lent begins today. We start our forty days of preparation for the celebration of the greatest mystery of our faith: the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus through which we have been redeemed from sin and death.

Lent is not originally a Christian practice. We borrowed it from the pagans. In the olden days, pagans would practice self-mortification during the month of February, the month that is not only the shortest but the coldest as well. During this coldest month of the year, pagans would make themselves so miserable so as not to feel so much how miserable they were with the severely cold weather.

Today we observe Lent not to make our selves feel miserable but because we wish to make our hearts ignite even more for love of Him who loves us more than we know, who proves to us that we, sinners though we are, are worth dying for and are worth rising for as well. Perhaps the coldness of our hearts is more severe than the severest winter. We need to examine our hearts rather than sharpen our tools of self-mortification. We need to rend our hearts, not our garments. We need to change our hearts from being hearts of stone to being hearts of flesh, capable of loving as much as capable of being loved. We need not feel miserable. Rather, we need to recapture our lost sense of inexpressible gratitude by experiencing again and again the Father’s welcoming embrace at our return after squandering His wealth with dissolute living. We need to rediscover our lost sense of childlike joy, too, at the return of the prodigal child of the Father, of each and every prodigal brother or sister of ours.

We mark the beginning of our Lenten observance with the imposition of ashes. This we do even as the Lord admonishes us in the Gospel today not to be showy with our righteous deeds, our prayer habits and our fasting. However, the ashes we impose on our foreheads are not meant to advertise our piety and self-sacrifice. If you, when you fall in line today to receive the ashes from the ministers, catch your self taking pride in having the largest cross on your forehead, in having the darkest mark of ashes on your forehead, better fall out of line and return to your seat. You get it all wrong and no amount of ashes will correct your misunderstanding.

We impose ashes on our foreheads today not for others but for our selves. We need to remember that we are ashes and to ashes, we shall return. We need to remember that we are also stained like the rest who, perhaps, we disdain. We need to remember that we need God’s forgiveness as much as, if not more than, others. As we remember, we are told, “Repent and believe in the Good News.” for remembering should lead us to repentance, and repentance to a renewed faith in the Gospel of joy, peace, love, forgiveness, and salvation in Christ.

But why ashes? Why not impose other elements on our forehead as we begin Lent?

Three reasons.

First, ashes are clean. That which goes through fire is purified. When we burnt the palms we used last year, fire gave us these ashes. These ashes are pure elements of the otherwise old palm branches. When we impose these ashes on our foreheads, we should be reminded of the purity to which we are all called. We must strive to live holy lives. Moreover, in our pilgrimage of faith, we have to pass through many baptisms of fire so that we may be purified and sanctified. Ashes are not symbols of sin. They are reminders of purity. Let us be pure.

Second, while the ashes themselves are symbols of purity, their color, ironically, reminds us of the darkness of sin as well. Black is traditionally the color of evil. When we sin, we live in darkness. Darkness hides the purity in us. However, if you look closely on the ashes to be blest in this Mass, you may notice that they are not totally black. They are grayish. The white of purity, as if, fights the black of impurity. Because the original purity of the human heart, created in the image and likeness of God, cannot be totally defeated, the grayish color remains. But gray is gray. Though not black, it is still not white. In our commitment to follow Jesus, we fight a battle within our selves even as we wrestle with the dark forces outside our selves. In this spiritual warfare, we should not surrender. We have to be resolute in our fight against the evil one. But just as the ashes on our forehead are in the form of a cross, we hear an echo of the advice, legend says, once given to Constantine on his way to a battle: “By this sign you shall conquer.” By the cross and only by the cross of Christ can we be saved. By and only by the redemptive grace of Jesus can we be victorious over the dark forces of evil.

Third, ash is a biblical sign for mourning. Particularly in the Old Testament, we read about people rending their garments, putting on sackcloth and ashes to express their grief over their misfortune or sins. The ashes on our foreheads are signs of our sorrow for hurting God and one another by our sins. Words are not enough to express our deep sorrow. We turn to ashes to express the inexpressible. Thus, if we are not sorry for our sins and are sincere in making amends for them, we better not receive ashes today less we become of hypocrisy.

The call to purity, the power of the cross and the sincerity of our contrition are the reasons why we use ashes to mark the beginning of Lent. But these reasons are for our consideration not only in the next forty days. They should be our concern all throughout our lives as we strive to die and rise with the Lord.

Before we impose ashes on our foreheads, let us enter into the silence of this holy season and ask our selves three questions: Do we strive to remain pure? Do we fight my battles with the power of the cross of Jesus and not surrender our selves to the darkness of sin? Are we sincere in our contrition? Only we can answer. The ashes on our foreheads cannot. Only Jesus knows. The ministers who impose the ashes on our foreheads do not.