At its very heart, these are the questions we seek to answer during this Lenten season. It is why this season is so penitential and why we either give something up or place some form of sacrifice upon ourselves. It is why we abstain from meat, something that used to be reserved for the wealthy and seen as a luxury, but for us has become commonplace but still, in some senses, is a luxury.
It is also why, above all, we begin the season of Lent with ashes, an ancient and biblical sign of repentance, of mourning, of penance and a sign that we are seeking forgiveness.
But it also reminds us of something uncomfortable, especially in this day and age, it reminds us that none of us are immortal, which is why when the ashen cross is placed upon our foreheads, the same forehead that, for most of us, was touched with the waters of Baptism, we hear the words: “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Words that were spoken to Adam and Eve when they were cast out of the Garden, words that recall how Adam was made when created from the ground, and God breathed life into him.
This is why that ashen cross upon our foreheads will mean nothing unless it reminds us of who we are as sons and daughters of God, unless it reminds us that without Him we can do nothing, because He created us from nothing and that without Him the very purpose of Lent is, indeed, meaningless.
Because, as everyone has probably experienced, when someone close to us passes away, or someone we know or we ourselves are diagnosed with an extended or terminal illness, our lives instantly change, and our priorities change, and our focus becomes on what it is important, not on what is fleeting.
Because when we face the uncertainty of our lives, we are transformed by the moments that God gives us. This is the purpose of Lent, to challenge us to recognize that all of us are called to change, to seek holiness, to grow closer to God and to allow Him to transform our lives, to die to our old ways, as many saints would put it, and to turn with our whole heart, as it says in our first reading, to rend and root sin out of our hearts so that in confidence we can, indeed, come to God.
So that what we are doing isn’t just something we did for 40 days but something that made us understand that the true hope is that the person we become during Lent is the person we remain. So, that the season doesn’t just become another in a long list of seasons we celebrate, but the beginning of a true conversion to Christ.
The beautiful thing about Lent is that it doesn’t matter where we have been only where we are going, and it is a unique opportunity to show God how serious we truly are, with fasting, weeping and mourning. To give ourselves entirely to Him, to live the life He is asking us to live and to do so without delay, for, as St. Paul reminds in our second reading, “now is the acceptable time, now the day of salvation is at hand.”
So that, in the end, we become the symbol of that ashen cross in our lives, not just giving something up for Lent, but allowing that spirit of sacrifice, that spirit of self-denial and self-control to become something we practice each and every day even beyond the Lenten season.
To build our lives upon Lent’s pillars of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, knowing that, by doing so, we will always remember that, indeed, we are dust and to dust we shall return.
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