The Ashes and The Cross

This Wednesday we shall take the ashes in the form of the cross on our forehead.  We begin the forty days of Lent with the reminder of our mortality, as dust unto dust, and our salvation, the cross of Jesus Christ.  The symbolism is powerful.  With the ashes we accept the fleeting nature of the temporal state of our lives; in the imposition of the sign of the cross, we accept the divine nature of our salvation. 

In preparation for his public ministry, Jesus was led by the Spirit to the desert, to pray and fast for forty days and forty nights.  Our Lenten journey of that duration brings us close to him as we contemplate his life in a unique, personal solidarity of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The Church changes its liturgical disposition, taking on a somber drumbeat of remembrance of his prophetic teachings, challenges and exhortations.  Finally we are led to the foot of the cross and into his resurrection, where our own final salvation is offered through grace in sacrifice of the Son of God, to be discerned and chosen by those who believe. 

"Our Lenten journey of that duration brings us close to him as we contemplate his life in a unique, personal solidarity of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. "

Lent is a time of repentance.  “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning:  Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.  For gracious and merciful is he.”  With these words of the prophet Joel, we shall begin our liturgical observance of Ash Wednesday.  As we are invited to come closer to Jesus, we must look at our lives carefully.  This is our time of conversion.  There is something in our lives, we know, that must change.  Jesus invites us to come closer to him.  He will transform those struggles and failures as we invite him in, and allow him to do his work. 

“Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning:  Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.  For gracious and merciful is he.”

In the Gospel of Matthew which we will hear, preparing to receive the ashes, the words of Jesus to his disciples are meant for our ears.  What is seen by God, in secret, will be our repentance.  To pray, fast and give alms, in secret; between each of us and God.  To fast, to turn away from something that controls us, without boasting or complaining, in secret.  To give more, even when others don’t know, even when the recipient doesn’t know who we are; Jesus knows; in secret. 

"What is seen by God, in secret, will be our repentance."

And above all to enter more deeply into the relationship that matters most, with Jesus, in intimate conversation and communion with him.  Not simply to make resolutions to pray more, but to make that prayer a two-way conversation where our worries, our problems, our failures and our gratitude bring us anew into that most important gift that is given: Jesus, here, now and always.  For forty days and forty nights we open the hidden chambers of our heart to Jesus.

The sign of the cross, in ashes, is the beginning statement of Lent.  The cross is his sign.  Without it we face ashes and dust.  Therefore, we hear, believe and respond.  We follow the Lord.    

+Most Reverend Stephen J. Berg

Bishop of Pueblo

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