Ash Wednesday 2017
1 Jl 2:12-18; 2 Cor 5:20-6:2; Mt 6:1-6, 16-18
In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Today we fulfill the 1st reading, history is alive in us his ambassadors. We assemble at Our Lady of the Lake University as those elders in professors, students, staff, family, and friends to proclaim our faith. We make an altar of sacrifice as a people of God and God cannot deny himself in his righteousness.
Christ fulfills the sacrifice we are to receive in the Eucharist for righteousness that we may receive the gift of his mercy. What is our gift on the altar? A confession of faith, the recognition of our sinfulness, obedience to his will so we may be his ambassadors to the world. Through us, with us and in us we become the righteousness of God in him. This is our purpose and our destiny through the gifts he wills to multiply and spread each according to his providence.
South Texas is a windy area, especially if you go out to the gulf. Imagine being a sailboat out in the waters of the Gulf. The boat is your soul. Where is your soul headed? It is being guided by the sail of faith. What is the wind that drives it? The wind we seek is that of the Holy Spirit. It strengthens our faith and grows stronger through the sacramental life on the journey. There is also another wind that can misguide us like a hurricane it can enter our sail and cause havoc. It is the wind of temptation. Our destiny is the shore of salvation but there also an anchor that can stop our mission. It is the anchor of sin. This image was given to us by professor Dr. John Bergsma, Franciscan University of Steubenville in a Deacon’s conference. What anchor of sin has been dragging us down? Behold now is a very acceptable time to rend our hearts and say “Father be merciful to me for I have sinned.”
There is another anchor Christ is ready to give us. It is the anchor of salvation in Christ, “sure and firm, and which reaches into the interior behind the veil (Heb. 6:19). This is the encounter we seek in the “secret” of our daily actions of prayer, generosity, kindness, forgiveness, patience, and celebration of life and love. He sees it all with a just reward.
This a great challenge of our times, in a culture that hungers for individuation, recognition, self-actualization, and empowerment to “be all I can be”. Today God’s call is “Be all I created you to be.” Today let us be his image in the world.
As we prepare for this Lenten season let us keep in mind the Church guidance. Fasting is one full meal per day and two small meal “sufficient to maintain strength”. Eating between meals breaks the fast but drinking liquids does not. Canon 1253 however allows “substitute of other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety”. “Abstinence refers to the eating of meat of warm blooded animals (beef, lamb, chicken, pork). Ash Wednesday and Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord are days we do both fast and abstinence. All Fridays in Lent are days of abstinence”. (Diocese of Brownsville 2017 Guidelines for Lent)
In every action there is a consequence and accountability. In the natural law of physics it says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Our sin nature has consequences, some we see immediately and other we fail to see until later. Sometimes to our heartache we recognize the impact of our sin in those we love the most. There is a song that gets repeated in many homes. The story is of a father who in his demands from work and bills spends little time with his son. The child grows up and moves away, gets married and enters into his own demanding lifestyle. The father wishes he would visit but the son tells him they will get together some day, not now. Recall the song? “Cats in the cradle”.
“And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon; Little boy blue and the man in the moon. ‘When you coming home, son?’ “I don’t know when; But we’ll get together then, dad; We’re gonna have a good time then.” (Harry F. Chapin, Sandy Chapin)
We may think of the sin we have done but often forget what we have failed to do, the sin of neglect. Today the Lord reminds us he is above the natural law. He is in the supernatural and his name is Mercy to give us a clean heart.
In the beginning of the song “Cats in the cradle” the son seeks the father and in the end the father seeks the son. In our lives it begins with the Heavenly Father wanting us and we push away like the prodigal son. In the end we his sons and daughters need Him and he does not push away. He embraces us. Let us receive Him today.
No return, no regrets, make it count!
(Distribution of ashes at Our Lady of the Lake University, La Feria, Texas; March 1, 2017)
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