Ash Wednesday 2009

Today, we break the cycle of the 7th week in Ordinary Time as we enter the Lenten season. We will not hear the bell anymore until it rings again on Easter Vigil; no more Alleluias until we say it again on Easter Sunday. The stole of the priest will be violet in color. We are encouraged to have more silence than ever in order to promote an atmosphere conducive for sober reflection.

The rites are so rich that they dispose us to start these 40 days with a spirit of openness to the life God wants to bestow on us fully in Christ. With this openness, we are shown and given the gift of humility, acknowledging our sinfulness. At the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we will receive His mercy and forgiveness, a reconciliation made possible only with Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the Cross and consequent Rising from the dead. With fasting, prayer and almsgiving, we spend this day in His presence so that we may see the glory He is preparing us for: the Resurrection and life in the Spirit.

The ashes tell us about this fact of life: that whatever we have today, like the palms we waved in last year’s Palm Sunday, will all become ashes in death. The specter of death always looms ahead, awaiting us like a hole in the cemetery, ready to close us in total isolation, unreachable to the loving hands of people who love us, making us unable to reach out and beg for help. It is only Christ, Whose Hands, stretched out on the cross, Who can bridge that hole in the cemetery of our lives with eternity in God the Father, making us see the light again, making us belong again, making us alive again. Indeed, these ashes have power to bring us back to our senses, making us ask ourselves again (who knows this may be the last time we are given to face and raise this question): WHAT IS IT THAT REALLY MATTERS TO US INDIVIDUALLY, COMMUNALLY AND UNIVERSALLY? It is only when we have known the love of this Hand and seen for ourselves its power to forgive, accept, and grant us a new life that we shall experience how it is to be saved. And knowing and believing we are saved, we proclaim this Good News. We thus pray that He abides by us through these 40 days so that we will celebrate His victory over death that keeps us locked in the darkness of being unloved.