Homily on Ash Wednesday

Repent and believe in the Gospel

Homily on Ash Wednesday

Fr. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR

St. Gerard Majella Catholic Church

Baton Rouge, LA, USA

February 22, 2012

When I was growing up, Ash Wednesday was my least favorite. In fact, I did not like Ash Wednesday and the entire season of Lent. I did not like the season because of the impression I got at that time. As a young boy, I liked the joyful celebrations of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. But during the season of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, Christians, especially Catholics walk around looking like they just had a hook warm treatment. At the time, I had seen Catholics who think that laughing during Lent was not proper. They therefore spend the 40 days of Lent feeling really bad about their sins. The only issues they talk about are death, the nothingness of life and how miserable we all are. These Christians move around looking gloomy and prohibiting laughter and smile.

Because of their attitude, I disliked Ash Wednesday and the entire period of Lent. I had even thought that some people should petition the Pope so that he can erase this season from the Church’s calendar. I had thought that it is time we showed the world that we are not a gloomy bunch of folks who manage to take the fun out of everything. This was the way I felt for sometime about Ash Wednesday and Lent until I started to read and study more about Ash Wednesday. I began to see what I never saw then, and I began to feel differently about it.

Ash Wednesday reminds us that life is a precious gift from God that we should cherish. It also reminds us that one day we must give up this life. As busy people, busy with the affairs of this world, we need to be reminded from time to time that we come from dust and one day we will return to dust. But that is not the end of the story. Ash Wednesday also comes each year to remind us that Easter is coming. “Lent” itself means “Spring”- that is, that time of the year after a long winter when new life begins to burst forth everywhere. Ash Wednesday begins with gloom and doom, but it ends with a mighty, world-shaking BOOM!

Ash Wednesday comes not just to remind us about our being miserable sinners in constant need of repentance, even though we are. But it seeks to prepare us anew to receive in our hearts the wonderful grace and forgiveness of God offered in Christ. As a boy living in maternal home with my grandmother, I remember trying to help my grandmother carry heavy buckets of water to her house from a stream. I had put a pole across my shoulders and put a bucket on each end of the pole. The house was a good distance away from the stream; and the first time I tried this, I just could not make it. The buckets were too heavy for me. And I have never forgotten my maternal uncle coming out, taking the pole and placing it on his strong shoulders and carry them for me. I felt good getting rid of those heavy buckets.

Now Ash Wednesday and Lent come along to remind us to look at our shoulders for the heavy burdens we may be carrying there- guilt, sin, unforgiving spirit, bitterness against another, hatred etc. and allow Jesus Christ take them onto his shoulders. This calls for joyful mood. There is no reason to be gloomy, is it? During this awesome Sacrifice of the Mass, we will all receive a mark of ashes on our foreheads. The priests will make a vertical line “I” on our foreheads which stands for us, the sinful self, that part of us that wants to rebel against God that hurts our relationships with God and others. But that is not the only mark we will receive. That “I” on our foreheads will be crossed meaning there will be another horizontal mark. At the end, what we will see on our foreheads will be a cross! It means the sinful self is crossed out. The ashes made in the form of a cross remind us of the cross of Christ by which our sins and the sins of the whole world are canceled out. Is this not a great reason for rejoicing?

Ash Wednesday reminds us that we belong to a world of sin and death, but we are not abandoned here. The very sign of the cross on our foreheads, though made with ashes to remind us of our sins, reminds us also of that same sign made in water on our foreheads when we were baptized. It is a sign of ownership. When you pick up a book and see someone’s name inside it, you know that it belongs to that person. When we and others see the sign of the cross on our foreheads, it is a reminder that we do not ultimately belong to a world of death and sin, but to a gracious and loving God who is our Father. Ash Wednesday is here again! It comes each year. I don’t know about you, but I need it. I want my sins to be taken away from me. The weight of it is weighing me down. After all, I belong to God through Jesus my Lord.