Ash Wednesday

Today we begin again one of the mayor seasons of the Church year, the season of Lent. A season which as you know, continues until, and culminates in our celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. I won't try to explain all of Lent this afternoon. This is an understanding that should grow as naturally as does the season itself, with the various liturgies to come over the next five or six weeks. Just a couple of opening thoughts today. I suppose two main things come to mind, almost automatically, when we think of Lent. One, it is thought of as a time for concentrating on the reality of sin, because of the connection between sin and the death of Christ, and second it is thought of as a time for doing penance because of that sin. I think both are very important.

If we think of sin, as I believe we should, as being whatever it is in our lives that prevents us from enjoying the full the fruits of the Resurrection, which, we are told have been given to us, then it is very important indeed, as we progress towards a celebration of that Resurrection, to come in our own minds to an honest, Christian sense of sin, an honest Christian awareness of ourselves as sinners. To make use of an idea that was brought out in the adult education session last Sundry, this sense of sin is a two level, two faceted thing. I must say "I am a sinner because of the things I do." All the small and not so small acts of pettiness and selfishness that makes up a part of the life of each of us. But I must also say that I am a sinner because of what I am. I am a person who has built himself a world based far too often on the decision not to love. Not to be a true son to the Father, a true brother to the rest of mankind. And this really is the important sense of sin... it is from this that the first stems. It is from this that we see clearly that the way to eliminate sin is to concentrate on living the positive love-life of the Resurrection, rather than seeking the suffering and death of the cross, for ourselves, or for anyone else. I would strongly suggest that you make the adult education series half of which is just this theme, a Lenten project.

And because of sin, penance. Lent has traditionally been a time for the doing of Penance. With the relaxation of the laws of fast and abstinence, there are now only two days of fast and abstinence (today and Good Friday), it may seem as though the idea of penance is dying out. But that, of course is not the case at all. Rather, the whole practice of penance is now seen not as a matter of learning and following a complicated body of laws, but rather a question of individual Christians in different circumstances employing their own creativity, taking the initiative for their own growth. And the sort of thing, the sort of self-denial we have traditionally considered penance does indeed have a real, a necessary place in Christian growth. A place that is not so much a matter of punishing one's self for the sins one has committed, as it is a matter of removing from our lives, even for a time, anything that might prove to be a distraction, a hindrance, by dragging our attention away from concentrating on coming to see what it is to be a resurrected son, a resurrected brother. In times of particular spiritual growth, such as this season is meant to be, self-denial, penance is as natural as turning down a blaring radio when you want to do some serious reading.

And so, in an honest awareness of sin, and in expectation of the resurrection to come, I can, with no feeling of contradiction wish you a happy Lent.

Readings: Joel 2:12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6,16-18. The homily was preached on Ash Wednesday, February 11, 1970.