14/02/2024
*Wonderful Words of Life:* Wednesday, 14th of Feb., 2024. Ash Wednesday.
📜 Joel 2:12-18; Ps 50:3-6,12-14,17; 2 Corin 5:20-6:2; Mt 6:1-6,16-18.
*Theme: Have Mercy, O Lord, for we have Sinned.*
*“Even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and tear your hearts and not your garments.” (Joel 2:12-13)*
We begin the sacred season of Lent today with the blessing and the imposition of ashes on our foreheads. Ash Wednesday is the first day of forty days of our preparation for the celebration of Easter. It is a day of fasting and abstinence. This season calls us to sober reflection on the essence of our existence. Are we living for ourselves or for God? The ash reminds us about our fragility, mortality, and nothingness and calls us to repentance. This tells us that we are dust and to dust indeed we shall return. Therefore, Lent is an invitation to humble ourselves before God.
The ash is an outward show of our Christian piety and an expression of our contrite heart as we seek mercy and pray for mercy like the people of Nineveh. Lent is an inner journey that makes the heart turn away from sin and shame to God. Hence, prophet Joel in the first reading tells us that it is not about our garments but our hearts. It is a period where the church wants her children to grow deeper in their relationship with God and their neighbours. Hence, the tripartite virtues of prayers, fasting, and almsgiving are emphasized.
Beloved, as we begin this journey of Lent with Ash Wednesday, we are reminded to repent and believe in the gospel. The ash tells us that without God we are nothing. It is a season of reconciliation that is very urgent without delay because delay might be dangerous. During Lent, we are invited to practice penance that helps us to purge or prune the soul to attune to God. Let us truly live like the ambassadors of God and come to God with these words in our hearts, "Have mercy on us, oh Lord for we have sinned.