ASH WEDNESDAY- YEAR C ~ MARCH 5, 2025
A JOURNEY OF CONVERSION
We begin our Season of Lent by having ashes on our forehead with the words “Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return”. This is the time in which we seek to be more united with the Lord, to share the mystery of his Passion and His Resurrection. As Pope Francis said “The season of Lent is a favorable time to remedy the dissonant chords of our Christian life and to receive the ever new, joyful and hope-filled proclamation of the Lord’s Passover. The Church in her maternal wisdom invites us to pay special attention to anything that could dampen or even corrode our believing heart. We are subject to numerous temptations. Each of us knows the difficulties we have to face. And it is sad to note that, when faced with the ever-varying circumstances of our daily lives, there are voices raised that take advantage of pain and uncertainty; the only thing they aim to do is sow distrust. If the fruit of faith is charity – as Mother Teresa often used to say – then the fruit of distrust is apathy and resignation. Distrust, apathy and resignation: these are demons that deaden and paralyze the soul of a believing people. Lent is the ideal time to unmask these and other temptations, to allow our hearts to beat once more in tune with the vibrant heart of Jesus. The whole of the Lenten season is imbued with this conviction, which we could say is echoed by three words offered to us in order to rekindle the heart of the believer: pause, see and return which strengthens our journey of conversion.
A monk used to give discourses on the riverbank. Many people used to come to listen to him. Everyone listened to him very attentively and among them was a young man. One day after discourse ended, he went to the monk and said, “I listen to your teachings everyday but still there is no change in me”. The monk smiled and asked, “which village are you from?” He replied, “There is a village 10 miles away from here. I live there”. “How do you come from your village?” asked the monk and man replied, “I walk all the way here”. “Can you reach your village without walking” monk asked the next question. The man replied, “No, that’s not possible”. The monk smiled and said, “Similarly, if you do not implement my teachings in your life then there will be no effect on you, nor can you see any change in you. You yourself must start following those teaching in your life consistently according to situations, only then you can bring change or conversion in your life”.
Pope St. Clement1 opens our minds to understand the real meaning of Lent with these words “If we review the various ages of history, we will see that in every generation the Lord has offered the opportunity of repentance to any who were willing to turn to him. When Noah preached God’s message of repentance, all who listened to him were saved. Jonah told the Ninevites they were going to be destroyed, but when they repented, their prayers gained God’s forgiveness for their sins, and they were saved, even though they were not of God’s people. In other words, God wanted all his beloved ones to have the opportunity to repent and he confirmed this desire by his own almighty will. That is why we should obey his sovereign and glorious will and prayerfully entreat his mercy and kindness. We should be suppliant before him and turn to his compassion, rejecting empty works and quarrelling and jealousy which only lead to death. The Season of Lent is to pause a little to see who we are and where we heading are to and return to the Lord “As I live”, says the Lord, “I do not wish the death of the sinner but his repentance”. He added this evidence of his goodness: House of Israel, repent of your wickedness. Tell the sons of my people: If their sins should reach from earth to heaven, if they are brighter than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, you need only turn to me with your whole heart and say, “Father,” and I will listen to you as a holy people”. Once again St. Pope Clement I says “we should be humble in mind, putting aside all arrogance, pride and foolish anger. Rather, we should act in accordance with the Scriptures, as the Holy Spirit says: The wise man must not glory in his wisdom nor the strong man in his strength nor the rich man in his riches. Rather, let him who glories glory in the Lord by seeking him and doing what is right and just. Let this season provide us little time to pause, see and return and our lives may become pleasing to the Lord who suffered, died and rose again for us to grant eternal life.
The following story should help us to understand the true meaning of Lent and how to grow deeper in our faith despite all temptations and shortcomings of our human flesh.
Once upon a time a wealthy nobleman enters a monastery under questionable motives, but ended up genuinely striving for holiness and virtue, and even finding that the battle for sanctity was worth it! Despite his progress, he constantly felt weak in his faith, and unceasingly begged God to grant more. He was humble. After seven years living as a hermit, an attractive woman visited who was bent on seducing him (he was well known as a very handsome hermit). What she didn’t know was that just before she arrived, he had been nearly overcome with thoughts of lust, so she had come at just the “right” time.
She banged and begged at his door as if stranded and alone, tricking him into letting her in on a cold winter night (her friends had actually dropped her off), and after he locked himself in his room to avoid her, she told him to stay in his room because she was undressing – a fact she knew would make him imagine her. He could hear her silken garments moving and, having exposed herself, she began moaning requests to him. She pleaded that she had been stricken very ill, perhaps by the cold, and desperately needed his immediate attention. From his room he whispered prayers knowing that his faith was too weak for such a trial. He knew what she wanted. He wanted her. He then burst out of his room, sped past her straight to his porch where an ax lay for splitting wood, and laid down his finger and cut it off in an extreme act of mortification (to be understood, but not emulated). He had resisted sin to the point of shedding blood! Witnessing this, she collapsed into tears begging for forgiveness. He told her God would forgive her and told her to leave immediately. Her friends picked her up and brought her home. Soon thereafter she entered a convent.
The news of this encounter spread, giving the hermit great fame. Pilgrims came for blessing and healing. As his fame grew, so did his pride. He pretended to dislike the constant attention, but inside he loved it more and more. At the height of his fame, something had changed in him, and a man came and begged that he would bless his daughter – with his heart more prideful this too was just the “right” time. As she entered, he was overcome with her femininity, and lust surged within him. She seemed to know it. She approached him, took his hand, and placed it on her breast. The two descended rapidly into their passions, his will totally overcome. The next morning, he awoke with her in his bed and had to flee in a disguise.
In the two instances of the monk being tempted, there lies a central theme: faith and humility. Alone in the woods, presuming a lack of faith, he overcomes acute temptation by humility. By the time of his second temptation, he had swelled with pride at the stroking of his ego, forgetting that faith is a gift to be opened, not a “quality” that we master and display for man’s eyes. As we progress in the spiritual life, there will be moments of victory. Yet we must never let our pride get ahead. Not a bit. “Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). With this story in mind, we can hear the gravity of these words from Sirach: “The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself…”
St. Jerome once wrote, “Every man to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot, and to take pleasure in his labor—that man has received a gift from God. For he will not notice the days of his life as they pass because God has filled his heart with joy. Compare him with the man who is anxious about his wealth and is full of vexation as he hoards up possessions that perish. Our text says that it is better to take delight in what you have. The first man at least has some pleasure in what he has, while the second suffers from excessive anxiety. And the reason is that the ability to enjoy riches is a gift from God; he does not count the days of his life, for God allows him to enjoy life; without sadness or anxiety, he is filled with delight of the moment. However, it is better to understand the text with the Apostle as referring to God’s gift of spiritual food and drink; man is to contemplate goodness in his works, for it takes great work and study for us to contemplate true good. And this is our lot: to rejoice in study and work. This is a good goal, but not completely good until Christ is revealed in our lives. All the work of a man is to satisfy his mouth, yet his spirit will be hungry. For what has a wise man more than a fool, except the knowledge of how to live? All that men work for in this world is consumed by their mouths, chewed up by their teeth, and passed into the stomach for digestion. And even when something delights the taste, the pleasure lasts only as long as he can taste it. But after all this, the mind of the eater gets no satisfaction, for he will want to eat again, and neither wise man nor fool can live without food, and even a poor man seeks nothing more than to keep his body alive and not die of starvation. Or again, it may be because the spirit gains nothing useful from feeding the body. Food is common to the wise and the foolish alike, and for the poor man food is wealth”.
He continues to say, “However, it is better to understand the text as referring to the man in Ecclesiastes, who is learned in the sacred Scripture, and knows that neither mouth nor spirit is satisfied so long as he still desires learning. In this the wise man has advantage over the fool. For if he knows himself to be poor (and the poor are called blessed in the Gospel), he strives to understand the important things in life, and he walks the straight and narrow way which leads to life. He is poor in wickedness, and he knows where Christ, who is our life, is to be found”.
Today’s liturgy offers us first and foremost a passage from the Prophet Joel, whom God sent to call the People of God to repentance and conversion, due to a natural disaster (a plague of locusts) which was devastating Judea. The Lord alone can save us from the scourge, and it is therefore necessary to entreat Him with prayer and fasting, confessing one’s sins. The Prophet emphasizes interior conversion: “return to me with all your heart” (2:12).
Returning to the Lord “with all your heart” means to begin the journey not of a superficial and transitory conversion, but rather of a spiritual itinerary regarding the most intimate place of our person. The heart is, indeed, the seat of our feelings, the centre in which our decisions, our attitudes mature. Prophet Jeremiah describes heart in these words, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings” (17:9-10). That “return to me with all your heart” involves not only individuals but is extended to the community. There may be a few obstacles, which close the door of the heart. There is the temptation to lock the doors, or to live with our sin, minimizing it, always justifying it, thinking we are no worse than others; this, however, is how the locks of the soul are closed, and we remain shut inside, prisoners of evil. Another obstacle is the shame of opening the secret door of the heart. Shame, in reality, is a good symptom, because it shows that we want to break away from evil; however, it must never be transformed into apprehension or fear. There is a third pitfall, that of distancing ourselves from the door: it happens when we hide in our misery, when we ruminate constantly, connecting it to negative things, until sinking into the darkest repositories of the soul. Then we even become kindred with the sorrow that we do not want, we become discouraged, and we are weaker in the face of temptations. This happens because we bide alone with ourselves, closing ourselves off and avoiding the light, while the Lord’s grace alone frees us. Therefore, let us be reconciled, let us listen to Jesus who says to those who are weary and oppressed: “Come to me” (Mt 11:28). Not to dwell within themselves, but to go to him! Comfort and peace are there.
It is a convocation directed to everyone: “gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber”. The Prophet pauses particularly on the prayer of the priests, pointing out that it is to be accompanied by tears. It will do us good, all of us, but especially for us as priests, at the beginning of Lent, to ask for the gift of tears, to render our prayer and our journey of conversion ever more authentic, and free from hypocrisy. And this is precisely the message of today’s Gospel. In the passage from Matthew, Jesus again reads the three works of mercy called for by Mosaic law: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. He distinguishes the external disposition from the interior disposition, from the weeping of the heart. Jesus highlighted a common temptation in these three works, that can be summarized precisely as hypocrisy (He mentions it three times): “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them…. When you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do…. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray… that they may be seen by men…. And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites…” (Mt 6:1, 2, 5, 16). “Return to me” — says the Lord — “return with all your heart”: not only with a few outward deeds, but from the depths of our selves. Indeed, Jesus calls us to live prayer, charity and penance with consistency and authenticity, overcoming hypocrisy.
As we walk on the path or journey of our conversion, we must reflect on the season of Lent in the following ways:
Lent is the time for saying no. No to the spiritual unconsciousness born of the pollution caused by indifference, by thinking that other people’s lives are not my concern, and by every attempt to underestimate life, especially the lives of those whose flesh is burdened by so much shallowness. Lent means saying no to the toxic pollution of empty and meaningless words, of harsh and hasty criticism, of simplistic analyses that fail to grasp the complexity of problems, especially the problems of those who suffer the most. Lent is the time to say no to the asphyxia of a prayer that soothes our conscience, of an almsgiving that leaves us self-satisfied, of a fasting that makes us feel good. Lent is the time to say no to the suffocation born of relationships that exclude, that try to find God while avoiding the wounds of Christ present in the wounds of his brothers and sisters: in a word, all those forms of spirituality that reduce the faith to a ghetto culture, a culture of exclusion.
Lent is a time for remembering. It is the time to reflect and ask ourselves, what we would be if God had closed his doors to us. What would we be without his mercy that never tires of forgiving us and always gives us the chance to begin anew? Lent is the time to ask ourselves where we would be without the help of so many people who in a thousand quiet ways have stretched out their hands and in very concrete ways given us hope and enabled us to make a new beginning?
Lent is the time to start breathing again. It is the time to open our hearts to the breath of the One capable of turning our dust into humanity. It is not the time to rend our garments before the evil all around us, but instead to make room in our life for all the good we are able to do. It is a time to set aside everything that isolates us, encloses us and paralyzes us. Lent is a time of compassion, when, with the Psalmist, we can say: “Restore to us the joy of your salvation, sustain in us a willing spirit”, so that by our lives we may declare your praise (Ps 51:12.15), and our dust – by the power of your breath of life – may become a “dust of love”.
Are we taking our journey of conversion seriously?
Other Sermons In This Series
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C – January 23, 2022
January 21, 2022
4th Sunday of Lent – Year C – March 27, 2022
March 24, 2022