Listen again to the voice of the Lord: “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.” A people with nothing soon realize that what matters most lies within. In Jewish writing, “the heart” includes what we would call our conscience, our innermost being, where we “are alone with God.”
What God is constantly reminding us is that God wants a real and true relationship with us. God’s focus is not simply on the external aspects of religious practice, but on the interior life. External religious practice, without an interior conversion of heart to God, is a lie. When we have truly “hit bottom” in our lives, we turn to that which matters the most: our innermost heart and our relationship with God.
We hear the same message from Christ in today’s Gospel. Christ reminds us strongly that it is our inner conversion of heart which God seeks. I have always loved the passage that says we are to wash our faces, and to take every effort to not show to others that we are fasting – all on a day when we get ashes smeared on our foreheads. It becomes a public badge of religiosity. In other words, exactly what Jesus tells us not to do.
So, what does this all mean to us today? First, with this celebration, we begin the sacred season of Lent. Our songs and prayers will remind us often about the significance of these “forty days.” Do we count Sundays? Do we count the days between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday of Lent? We tend to think so literally about things that we miss the point. In Hebrew numbers, “forty” is the number of human testing and preparation for a future mission taken on for God.
So, for example, the rains came down for forty days and nights; what happens afterward? God forms a new Covenant with Noah. We see the people wandering in the desert for forty years before they enter the Promised Land to begin their new life of freedom. In the New Testament, Jesus – following his baptism – goes into the desert for forty days before beginning his public life and ministry. That’s what Lent is for all of us: a time of preparation leading to our new mission in the Risen Christ at Easter. Today is the first step on that journey.
As we prepare to receive ashes today, let’s keep in mind their true significance. Remember that in every life we experience situations which can turn us away from God and to the brink of despair itself. We can believe that there is nothing left, that all is ashes and ruin. That is our starting point, and it turns our hearts to God.
After receiving the ashes, and after you have returned your whole heart over to God, follow Christ’s command and “wash your face” and “do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.” It’s not the ashes that will save us, but hearts given over to God.
Paul A. Magnano
Pastor