Ash Wednesday in #HomilyTweet — Seven that Caught My Eye Today

Last updated on: February 18, 2015 at 9:17 pm by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Ash Wednesday in #HomilyTweet — Seven that Caught My Eye Today 2015-02-18T21:17:35-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez

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1. Pope Francis: Only the Lord can save from the scourge, and so there is need of supplication, with prayer and fasting, each confessing his sin.

"Let's get cracking, Lent has begun!" – Cardinal Seán O"Malley OFM Cap. homily given today during Ash Wednesday… http://t.co/UrAu7s9wsE

— Archdio. of Boston (@bostoncatholic) February 18, 2015

3. @FrSteveGrunow:

The practices of Lent are meant to prepare Christians for worship- to prepare the faithful to attend Mass and to do so with a renewed sense of appreciation, reverence and understanding.

4. From @LawrenceOP:

in Lent, we are summoned together to train and take up arms against the Devil. How? St Peter put it this way: “Be sober, be vigilant. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Pt 5:8f). Again the language is military – we’re to be vigilant, keeping watch, keeping guard soberly and attentively, and we’re to put on the armour of our faith. This means that we’re to place our trust in God, relying always on his goodness, mercy and love. With such firm faith in God as our armour, we can then take up our weapons of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. So that we know who our fellow soldiers are in this military campaign, we can look to the sign of the ashen Cross on the forehead; a sign of Christ’s victory over death and sin. So, my fellow Christian soldiers, let us take up our battle station – this, our Lenten fast. And let us shame the Devil and, with Christ’s grace, help, and strength, defeat sin and the Evil One. Let combat commence!

The choice for us is clear. Embrace the cross or embrace the ash. Here's my homily for #AshWednesday: http://t.co/EJCL9GGj7P

— Fr James Bradley (@FrJamesBradley) February 18, 2015

6. Fr. Roger Landry from Rome (why did I not go on this pilgrimage??) on a Marian Lent:

• The first Lenten practice is prayer. Jesus says, “When you pray…,” which obviously shows the expectation that we will be praying along the journey. Mary is the the paragon of prayer and teacher of prayer. She shows us personal prayer in the Annunciation, in her Magnificat, and at Calvary. She shows us intercessory prayer at Cana. She shows us how to pray the Stations, as she accompanied her Son with a contemplative heart all along the journey. She shows us the Prayer of the Mass, as she received within herself from the hands of St. John the same Jesus in Holy Communion that she had received in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. She wants to help us advance on the pilgrimage of prayer.
• The second practice is fasting. Jesus says, “When you fast….” The purpose of fasting is to learn how to hunger for what God hungers. Mary does. In her Magnificat, she asserted that God ‘fills the hungry with good things.” She was filled with good things because she hungered, and she teaches us how to open ourselves up to those good things by our hunger. Jesus had said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness,” and she hungered for this sanctity with all her being, to be right with God. She wants us to have that same beatitude! When we fast, we become much more attentive to others’ needs and that’s what she shows us in Cana. She recognized when others had run out because she thought more about what they’d need than getting her own wine glass full. She wants to help us share that same hunger.
• The third practice is almsgiving. Jesus says, “When you give alms…” Jesus wants to help us to learn how to love others as he loved us, holding nothing back. In this, Mary is again exemplary, giving her entire self, her entire life to God and then for us and our salvation. She continues to giver herself, her prayers, her intercession. The Christian pilgrimage of Lent is the pilgrimage of a Good Samaritan crossing the road to care for others.
• We finish with what we’re about to receive, ashes. There are two sayings that a priest can say as he imposes the ashes. The first is “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” This is a saying that refers to the Body but we need to remember at the same time that we’re more than dust. God breathed into us a soul. And Mary shows us how to live in such a way that that soul magnifies the Lord. The second phrase is “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Repent means to turn around our mind to think with the Lord and no one thinks in greater harmony with God’s plans than Mary. Know one believes more firmly than she. Mary is praying for us to receive the ashes well, so that we may truly embrace the way of penance and faith, journeying with her along the path of the Christian life following and loving God with our whole heart, magnifying his mercy, seizing the gift of time, and coming to that place that Christ won for us by his prayer, fasting and almsgiving, where Mary now rejoices in the eternal Easter.

Embrace God's offer of grace. #homilytweet

— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) February 18, 2015

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