What is the message of Ash Wednesday?

Last updated on: February 9, 2016 at 6:25 pm by Mystic Post

What is the message of Ash Wednesday? 2016-02-09T18:25:21-05:00 Mystic Post

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ASH WEDNESDAY

Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

What is the message of Ash Wednesday? What does the liturgy of the word for Ash Wednesday say to you about Lent and following Christ?

The key word for this day, proclaimed to us by the prophet Joel, is “turn.” Joel has the Lord telling us “return to me with your whole heart” (Joel 2:12). How? With prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The intended essential turning is inward. “Rend your hearts, not your clothing” (Joel 2:13).

Those who fast, pray, and give alms only to be seen by others turn not to God but to human recognition and acclaim. The reward they seek is the reward they receive. Those who turn to God give without letting the left hand see the right, they allow God to measure the recompense. “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).

The mystery is this: integrity cannot be bought. It is gift. Turn to him, Joel counsels, and perhaps he will “leave a blessing behind him” (Joel 2:14). Humans who turn unselfishly hope to meet God’s free turning in blessing. It is characteristic of our gracious and merciful God to relent, to turn, to forgive, to bless.

The turning of God is always a surprise, always out of proportion to the gift of the rent heart. God’s people turn in prayer and fasting and almsgiving. God turns with the gift of life. At the climax of his turning, God made his Son to be like us that he might turn us to be the very holiness of God.

The Son of God turned to take our nature that we, who did not know holiness, might live by his life. We are a new creation, reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Now the ministry to that gift has been entrusted to us through baptism. We are ambassadors for Christ, envoys of reconciliation. In Christ Jesus God has turned to us that we might turn to each other and all together return to him.

WIKI FACTS

Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting, is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. It occurs 46 days (40 fasting days, if the 6 Sundays, which are not days of fast, are excluded) before Easter and can fall as early as 4 February or as late as 10 March. Ash Wednesday isobserved by many Western Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics.[note 1][1]

According to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus Christ spent 40 days fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan.[2] Lent originated as a mirroring of this, fasting 40 days as preparation for Easter. Every Sunday was seen as a commemoration of the Sunday of Christ’s resurrection and so as a feast day on which fasting was inappropriate. Accordingly, Christians fasted from Monday to Saturday (6 days) during 6 weeks and from Wednesday to Saturday (4 days) in the preceding week, thus making up the number of 40 days.[3]

Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of blessing ashes made from palm branches blessed on the previous year’s Palm Sunday, and placing them on the heads of participants to the accompaniment of the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.[4]

The wiki on Ash Wednesday

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