Homily: Ash Wednesday
Ashes, Inward Cleansing, Fertility in Hope, Faith, and
Love
Fr. Udoekpo, Michael Ufok
v Joel 2:12-18
v Ps 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17
v 2 Cor 5:20–6:2
v Matt 6:1-6, 16-18
Ash Wednesday
is a universal day of fast. Each year it introduces Lent, a new liturgical season,
with the demands of newness of life. This period spans from today until the Holy
Week, which begins with Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday). It is a special time of grace
that we yearn for God’s love.
Saint
Paul puts it well in the second reading: “It is a favorable time” for spiritual
and renewal—a time we renew our baptismal promises. It is a time of fasting and
prayer. In our community here, we are poised for evening Vespers, Stations of the
Cross, and other communal spiritual activities. This is a special season that comes
once a year. During this season, you and I are specially invited to pay closer attention
to Scripture, to the Word of God—and for those who preach, to do it with a renewed
zeal. It is a favorable time of penance and reconciliation—a time we go back to
pray Psalm 51, with David, asking for God’s blessings and forgiveness.
The Gospel
reading of today warns against selfish and hypocritical penitential life of Lent.
Our alms giving, fasting, and prayer this Lent should reflect our interior deep
spirituality and true love for Christ and our neighbors, already outlined in the
Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7). It is for this same reason—spirituality that comes
from within—that the Prophet Joel in the first reading (Joel 2:12-18) said, “Return
to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend
your hearts and not your clothing.” The heart is the center of love. We need to
keep it clean. It is from the heart that you and I initiate our penance in the direction
of corporeal and spiritual works of mercy on behalf of our brothers and sisters.
We need a pure heart to love and to forgive.
The ashes
that we shall receive at this Mass are ashes, dust, and sacramental of our personal
stories that we “are dust,
and to dust [we] shall return” (Gen 3:19); we are nothing
without God. It is an ancient and biblical symbol of the sinful, broken, and dusty
human condition in need of interior cleansing, purification, and God’s mercy.
Job,
for instance, at the end of his fruitless argument with God, puts on dust and ashes
as signs of repentance (Job 42:5-6). While mourning for Jerusalem, Isaiah put on
sackcloth and stripped himself naked for three years (Isa 20:2). Jeremiah also recommended
sackcloth and ashes as a sign of repentance (Jer 6:26). Christ himself fasted amidst
temptation in a dusty wilderness for forty days before his public ministry (Matt
4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13).
We are
another Christ. Moreover, once in a while we do feel a little dustiness in our lives—dust
of weaknesses, dust of violence, dust of injustice. This is the reason we are here.
We are also concerned for our neighbors, and, like Job, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, we
all want to be cleansed in Christ.
In some
cultures, after cooking with firewood, the remaining ashes are used as manure, fertilizer,
and agents of growth and fertility in farmlands and gardens. Think about that! May
the ashes we receive this day on our foreheads serve not only as a sign of our need
for inward cleansing and purification, but also as a sign of fertility in hope,
faith, and Christian love.
Reflection Questions:
1. How do you relate to today’s Scripture readings?
2. What is Lent for you?
3. Are repentance, alms giving, inward cleanings, faith,
and hope significant words for you this season?
4. What spiritual significance do ashes have in your particular
culture or diocese?
