Word to the Wise
Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - Ash Wednesday
[Joel 2:12-18 and 2 Cor 5:20-6:2 and Matt 6:1-6, 16-18]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. [Joel] We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. [2 Corinthians] "Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father." [Matthew]
This will be an Ash Wednesday to remember. Parishioners will be wearing masks and "socially distancing." The ashes will not be smeared on our foreheads but sprinkled on top of our heads (at least here in Lubbock). Lent seems not so much a change from the penitential practices that the pandemic has imposed on us as an intensification, just as we are beginning to find some hope in vaccination! We won't even get to wear that "badge" of ashes to proclaim ourselves "Catholic" (as if we're the only ones doing this!). Perhaps we are being called to an "invisible" Lent?
The prophet Joel calls us to a rending of the heart and not our garments. Jesus tells us not to parade our penances in public to gain notice.. The penances brought to us by the pandemic are quite visible. We have to wear masks and keep our social distance in public and to some extent in private. Our loved ones are isolated in hospital rooms. Weddings and funerals and other treasured rituals are reduced to minimally small events. The scars we bear from the pandemic will be lasting and mostly in the heart and memory, especially if we lost a loved one to the vicious virus. We have endured the longest Lent of our lives!
Perhaps with this Ash Wednesday, we can change the tone, if not the practices imposed by COVID. We can proclaim a Lent of Hope that celebrates with Jesus a "resurrection" from the long night of COVID. This will, indeed, challenge us to offer the depression and anger and genuine economic, spiritual, emotional and physical suffering as an opportunity to strip away [perhaps in the Sacrament of Reconiliation?] the false layers of our lives. The aim is to heal the heart and spirit while we await a healing from the physical requirements and penances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The "sprinkled" ashes are no less a challenge than the black cross-shaped smear on the forehead. AMEN