Ash Wednesday
(Joel 2:12-18; II Corinthians 5:2—6:2; Matthew
6:1-16.16-18)
“Margaret, are you weeping…” Gerard Manley Hopkins begins
one of his famous poems. The author is
about to contemplate death. “It is the
blight of man,” he says. It is also our
starting point in Lent.
Signs of deaths become evident as we grow old. We lose our vigor, our beauty, and our
memory. The ashes put on our foreheads today
confirm what seniors know with increasing alarm. Our bodies will turn into dust. We need to ask ourselves, “Am I living in
accord with the hope I have for salvation from non-existence?”
The Church proposes the season of Lent to realign
ourselves. Now is the time to make every effort to live so that we might share
in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. We
pray to God for help. We let go of
distractions from our purpose. And we
assist the needy as our sure way of overcoming death’s blight.
