Yesterday, we Roman Catholic Christians started our 40-day Lenten journey in preparation for Easter (March 23 this year). It’s a call to follow Jesus our Lord in a deeper and more intimate way as he confronts the forces of evil culminating in his own death on the cross and the triumph of his self-sacrificing love in the resurrection. The Lenten period begins with the rite of imposition of ashes, making us remember that “we are dust and to dust we will return” and that in remembering this truth, we need to be in touch with the constant need of conversion—to “repent and believe in the Gospel.”While looking at Zenit.org this morning, I read a very candid sharing of Cardinal Jozef Tomko, Cardinal-priest of the Basilica of Santa Sabina. Cardinal Tomko has been the prelate who administers ashes to the Pope for the last 12 years. He receives this task because he was assigned the cardinal titular church where the Pontiff traditionally celebrates Mass for the beginning of Lent. Zenit reports: like all Catholics, the Holy Father receives the ashes while the one administering them proclaims one of the two traditional exhortations: "Repent and believe in the Gospel" or "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."
Cardinal Tomko shares, referring to the first formula: the Holy Father "would have every right to say this to me and to everyone else. How can I remind the Pope of this?” And then, remembering the Great Pope JP II, he admits, “it was particularly difficult to say the second as John Paul II got older [...] It was like reminding him again what he not only knew, but felt in his body." He continues: "the choice has always been difficult. At times I have used one formula, at times the other. It is a very personal aspect, but also very significant because in whatever case, I must opt for a formula that is neither from the Pope nor from me: They are the words of God before which we should all bow our heads."
And here is a reminder which summarizes the meaning of "ashes" and also the Word of God that is read every Ash Wednesday: “Ashes, like dust, are a very eloquent sign of weakness, of sin and of the mortality of man, and to receive them one recognizes his limitation. Wealth, knowledge, glory, power, titles and dignities, do nothing for us…The time of Lent is directed toward the resurrection, and toward our hope, which is not limited to this life, nor detained by our limits, but rather a hope based on eternal life that is assured for us by Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection. And it is Jesus who asks three things of us in this intense time of the liturgical year: almsgiving - an expression of a more attentive generosity [...] of our love and respect for the needs of our neighbor and those who suffer; prayer - which flows from the heart more than from the lips; and fasting - sometimes renouncing the needs of the body, although today it can imply many modern forms of renunciation.”
A holy Lenten journey to all!
