March 9, 2011: Ash Wednesday
Click to hear audio homily
While I was in the seminary for six years, I had a bad habit of stopping by the cafeteria between classes to get a squirt of diet coke from the soda fountain machine. One Lent during my seminary days, I decided to fast from diet coke. After awhile, my subconscious began to crave for it. While taking showers, I would hum the tune, "Just for the taste of it, Diet Coke!"
Those of you who typically choose to fast from something during Lent know how the first week is difficult. Those who fasted from TV, for example, know how often you reached for the remote without even thinking. It's amazing how the mind craves for the flashes of images that bedazzle us. One seminarian showed me a rubber band that he was wearing on his wrist. I asked what it was, and he replied, "I snap it every time I have an unkind thought or a bad thought. I'm trying to fast from them."
When we ask ourselves what is at the heart of Lent, we think of self-control, self-discipline, and self-denial. Yet what is really at the heart of Lent is that which prevents me from loving. Heavenly Father has placed in every human heart a basic moral code to direct each person to do good and to reject evil. Unfortunately, we discover within ourselves many obstacles to loving and thus struggle to overcome them. Mother Teresa stated it this way, "When I choose evil, I sin. That's where my will comes in. When I seek something for myself at the cost of everything else, I deliberately choose sin. Say, for example, that I am tempted to tell a lie, and then I accept to tell the lie. Well, my mind is impure. I have burdened myself. I have put an obstacle between me and God. That lie has won. I preferred the lie to God." To attain the happiness for which we have been created, we must constantly use our will to act against any sinful inclinations, and reject all sin, for it distances us from God and enslaves us to our inordinate desires. (Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C Mother Teresa: Where There is Love, There is God).
As we come to receive ashes this morning, some of you will hear, "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:19) It is always helpful to remind us that out of great love, God lovingly created us with elements of dirt, breathed His life into us, and has sustained us daily with His Fatherly love. And when the Father desires us to be with Him in heaven, we leave behind our earthly bodies to return to dust. While the hardships and sufferings of this earth tempt us to believe that we are not loved, a priest traces on our foreheads with ashes, the sign of the cross, as a sign of love from the Heavenly Father that we are so precious to Him that He purchased us at a great price, the price of His only Son's life. The sign of the cross that Our Heavenly Father places on us is also a reminder that our worth as His sons and daughters is beyond what we can ever imagine. Therefore, Heavenly Father, seeing this great dignity in us says through the priest, "Turn away from sin, and be faithful to the Gospel." (Mark 1:15) We are made for greatness, to be holy as Our Heavenly Father is holy.
The season of Lent is then the rediscovery of our calling to know, to love, and to serve Our Heavenly Father in holiness on this earth, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven. Mother Teresa reminds us that holiness is not difficult, for the foundation of holiness is Jesus. She said,
"Am I convinced of Christ's love for me and mine for Him? This conviction is the rock on which sanctity is built. What must we do to get this conviction? We must know Jesus, love Jesus, serve Jesus...
Love Jesus trustfully without looking back, without fear. Give yourself fully to Jesus. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love, than in your weakness. We must not be afraid to proclaim Jesus' love and to love as he loved. In the work we have to do, no matter how small, we must make it Christ's love in action.
Jesus wants us to be holy as His Father is holy. Holiness is not the luxury of the few, but a simple duty for you and for me. Holiness - very great holiness - becomes very simple if we belong fully to Our Lady. May the Immaculate Heart of our Queen and Mother be more and more our way to Jesus and may she obtain the light of Jesus, the love of Jesus and the life of Jesus for each one of us."
