Ash Wednesday, Years I & II

Pray to your Father in secret

1st Reading: Joel 2:12–18

The setting for this prophecy is after the Babylonian Captivity, after the temple had been rebuilt and society reestablished. There had been inadequate rain during the winter months and a swarm of locust destroyed the crops in the spring. Joel, prophesying in Judah, takes this as a warning from God and calls the people to repentance.

2nd Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2

At the beginning of this section, Paul is talking about himself and the other preachers of the Gospel being Christ’s ambassadors. He is saying that he is doing the work of the Lord with the authority of the Lord, as if it were the Lord himself. Then he turns his message to us.

Gospel: Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18

Jesus tells us not to perform righteous deeds or to give alms so that others will think well of us. He tells us to pray in secret in our inner room.

The verses comprising the Lord’s Prayer are skipped. Then the last two verses tell us to fast in a manner that doesn’t look like we are fasting.

Homily

Our selection today starts with Mt 6:1-6 and then skips down to verse 16. The part that is left out is the teaching on the Lord’s Prayer.

The verses we are given are all about humility in our religious practices. And, the Our Father has a tremendous air of humility about it. I’d like to talk about that.

I would like to suggest, that as one of our Lenten practices, we each commit to praying the Our Father at least once a day.

I know, many of you pray the Our Father every day anyway and maybe more than once a day especially if you pray a daily rosary. But I want you to pray it s-l-o-w-l-y, slowly enough that you can hear the words, not to think about the words but slowly enough that you can feel the impact of each phrase.

The prayer starts off by taking us out of our individual self-focus. We’re praying to our father. It is not just about me-and-God. We bring our awareness of all of our Christian brothers and sisters to this prayer.

As much as we spend our daily time and efforts trying to make ourselves look good, Now we are praying with the recognition that the glory rightfully goes to God.

As much as we try to own and control as much as we can in our lives, we now recognize that it’s his world; he created it, and as the creator, he is the only one who knows how life should be played out.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, not just in heaven and at the end times, but right here and right now in our lives where it can make a difference.

Recognizing the restless hunger which we all feel, we ask for the Bread from Heaven that only he can give; and in ours deepest humility we recognize our need to forgive others if we are going to live at peace.

Finally we admit that we do not have what it take to fight the demons of this world and ask him to do the job for us, as he did in Christ.

This is a truly humbling prayer and a perfect practice for Lent. It helps us stay in right-relationship with God and thereby, in right-relationship with others.