"Remember You are Dust and to Dust Yous Shall Return"

Photo Credit: Rafael Crisostomo for the Catholic Standard

Photo Credit: Rafael Crisostomo for the Catholic Standard

Of all the days on the liturgical calendar, Ash Wednesday is one of the nearly pop. There is something about it that touches united states of america on a key level and it is not unusual to run into churches full of people who come forward to receive ashes.

The flavour of Lent is set aside for us to reorient ourselves, to proceeds the proper perspective on things and put our priorities in social club. We take off our former self so nosotros might be properly prepared for the Paschal Mystery.

The ashes typically are imposed with the words, "Retrieve you are dust and to dust you shall return," while the sign of the cross is marked on the forehead. This speaks to us of both humility and exaltation, of death and new life. The ashes signify our inner fragility and poverty, and the cross our salvation in the mercy of God.

"You are dust. . . ." These are the words that God said to Adam (Genesis three:xix), recalling how earlier the Lord had "formed the homo out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the jiff of life" (Genesis 2:7).

At the starting time of Lent, we go back to the get-go so that we might go forward to redemption. Nosotros are invited to see ourselves equally grit again, to detach ourselves from the things of this world and empty ourselves so that we might be filled instead with God's "breath of life," that is, with his eternal Spirit. This flavor is a time to be converted to the very holiness of God as nosotros pray, "A make clean middle create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me" (Psalm 51:12), and engage in penitential practices similar abstaining from food and charitable giving of our material appurtenances.

". . . To dust yous shall render" (Genesis 3:19). Although in creating flesh, God has lifted the states up from our lowly origin, we are cautioned confronting pride. All our earthly appurtenances are destined to be lost. Everything nosotros have, all our worldly possessions, will one twenty-four hour period turn to dust, just as the great aboriginal empires of Egypt and Babylon, Greece and Rome have crumbled. Even before then, time, age, illness and "doctor'due south orders" can take away our gustatory modality for chocolate or our ability to enjoy a fast car. More to the point, one day our bodies will fail and die.

The beginning of Lent reminds us that this earth is passing and that we should put our trust instead in the eternal, in the Lord. The nigh important thing, the only permanent reality, is God. Rather than storing up earthly treasures, we should seek start his everlasting kingdom (Luke 12:sixteen-34). The blessedness we are promised in Christ'southward expiry and Resurrection "invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God to a higher place all else. It teaches united states of america that truthful happiness is non plant in riches or well-being, in human being fame or power, or in any homo accomplishment – even so benign it may be – such as scientific discipline, technology, and art, or indeed in whatsoever beast, but in God solitary, the source of every good and of all love" (CCC 1723).

All this is function of our grooming for heaven. The things of the temporal order are necessarily temporary and will all be for naught. But if we recognize our humility and empty ourselves, putting the Lord before all else, we receive infinitely more than we fear nosotros might lose. It is in this salvific perspective that the words of Genesis are repeated in the Ash Wednesday liturgy, inviting us to an awareness of our mortal state and our need for penance. By his Cross and Resurrection, though we be merely dust and ashes, we will be made a new creation.