Ash Wednesday (2)

Confession: I love the season of Lent with its message of “remember you are dust and to dust you will return”. I love it because it still seems to belong exclusively to the church – it hasn’t been commercialized yet by the secular culture like Christmas and Easter. But I also love because it offers a very special kind of hope.

You would think that remembering you are dust and are returning to dust would be a depressing message, but I find it far from it. To remember that we are dust gives us the gift of perspective. That we only have this one life – at least in this age – and that we need to live it well. “Remember that you are dust” invites us to look at those places in our life where we have compromised with the world, or where we are simply being swept along in the secular current, and instead shake off the cobwebs and hit a spiritual reset. To become more intentional with this life we’ve been given.

Today, as we embark on the Lenten season, the Lord says to us: Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” It may be surprising, but in today’s Gospel, the word we hear most frequently is reward (cf. vv 1.2.5.16). Usually, on Ash Wednesday, we think more of the commitments we make to pray, fast, and give. Yet today Jesus keeps returning to that word, reward, which seems to provide a motivation for our actions. It appears that within our hearts there is a desire for a reward, which attracts and motivates us - and that’s ok. Peter once asked Jesus, Matt 19:27 “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” and Jesus didn’t criticize him for wanting and expecting to be rewarded for his sacrifice.

The Lord, however, speaks of two kinds of reward to which our lives can tend: a reward from the Father and, on the other hand, a reward from others. The first is eternal, the true and ultimate reward, the purpose of our lives. The second is temporary, a spotlight we seek whenever the admiration of others and worldly success become the most important thing for us. But this latter reward is merely an illusion. It is like a mirage that, once we get there, proves false; the world’s rewards leave us unfulfilled. Restlessness and discontent are always around the corner for those who look to a worldliness that attracts but then disappoints. Those who seek worldly rewards never find peace or contribute to peace. They lose sight of the Father and their brothers and sisters. This is a risk we all face, and so Jesus tells us to “beware”. As if to say: “You have a chance to enjoy an infinite reward, an incomparable reward. Beware, then, and do not let yourself be dazzled by appearances, pursuing cheap rewards that disappoint as soon as you touch them”.

The rite of receiving ashes on our heads is meant to protect us from the error of putting the reward received from others ahead of the reward we receive from the Father. This somber sign, which leads us to reflect on the transience of our human condition, is like a medicine that has a bitter taste and yet is effective for curing the spiritual illness that enslaves us and makes us dependent on the admiration of others. A slavery that makes us live our lives for vainglory, where what counts is not our purity of heart but the admiration of others. Not how God sees us, but how others see us. We cannot live well if we are willing to be content with that reward.

In our gospel, the Lord assumes that we will be people who fast and pray and do acts of charity. Not because these score points with God, but because these are habits that heal. Because this illness of seeking glory from others is so prevalent, this is why the word of God urges us to look within and to recognize our own hypocrisies. Let us try and diagnose where we may be seeking temporary worldly reward and unmask them. It will do us good.

The ashes speak of the emptiness hiding behind the frantic quest for worldly rewards. They remind us that worldliness is like the dust that is carried away by a slight gust of wind. Friends, we are not on this earth to chase the wind; our hearts are made for eternity. Lent is the time granted us by the Lord to be renewed, to nurture our interior life and to journey towards Easter, towards the things that do not pass away, towards the reward we are to receive from the Father. Lent is also a journey of healing. Not to be changed overnight, but to live each day with a renewed spirit. Prayer, charity and fasting are aids to this. Marked by the ashes of Lent, they become even more powerful and restore us to a living relationship with God, our brothers and sisters, and ourselves.

Prayer, charity and fasting need to grow “in secret”, but that is not true of their effects. Prayer, charity and fasting are not medicines meant only for ourselves but for everyone: they can change history. First, because those who experience their effects almost unconsciously pass them on to others; but above all, because prayer, charity and fasting are the principal ways for God to intervene in our lives and in the world. They become the weapons of the Spirit by which the kingdom of God comes to earth.

So Lord, you who see in secret and reward us beyond our every expectation: Hear the prayers of those who trust in you, especially those who humble themselves before you, and restore peace to our hearts. Let us seek the reward that comes from you. Amen.