Ash Wednesday Lenten Message

Ash Wednesday Gospel: Matthew 6:1-18.

On this first day of Lent, we hear Jesus exhort his followers to give alms and do deeds of mercy, pray – both personally and communally, and to fast.

The gospel passage we heard tonight is from the heart of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew recollected the body of Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount and gives a beautiful summary of the teachings of the Kingdom of God.

I might note that after His teachings in chapters 5, 6, and 7, he then goes on to detail many of Jesus’ miracles – the Signs of God’s Kingdom in our midst (Healings and life restoring miracles; miracles of nature; inclusion of outsiders and society’s throwaway people; love of enemies; confronting hypocrisy and religious legalism; and emphasizing that the Least are the Greatest). Then in Chapter 10 Jesus calls his disciples – as well as us – to go and do likewise!

But for tonight we will focus on Matthew chapter 6 where Jesus comments on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. You will immediately notice that Jesus does not say “if you give alms” “If you pray” or “If you fast”; but he says “when you give alms” “when you pray” “when you fast.” It is not an option. These are required perquisites of the Christian life.

What is it to give alms? Besides giving monetary gifts to the needy and poor as well as to the church, we can give our time and talents to others. In fact, there are some – even here – who may be hungering and thirsting, but not for food or water, but rather instead they are hungering and thirsting for kindness, compassion, companionship!

As for prayer – Jesus tells us to go to our inner room. Wherever that might be – here in our room, or in the chapel, or deep in our heart, we are alone with God with our personal prayer. Yet Jesus then gives us a community prayer as well: the “Our Father”. We also need to worship together as community.

We need to ask ourselves how we have communicated to God. In our lives, we know that we need to communicate with others. If we fail to communicate with our friends, then our friendship will likely die. So it is with God. We must pray. And if Jesus himself prayed, He who is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, then certainly we frail human beings need to pray. And we pray personally and communally.

Finally – fasting. What is fasting? What does it mean to fast? In most accounts, it is to abstain from food or to eat very little or abstain from certain foods, especially as a religious discipline. But in a deeper religious sense, it is the act or practice of abstaining from certain things that might keep us from God; and the period of such abstention or self-denial is called a fast.

Then we ought to ask ourselves: what is keeping each of us from Christ? It could be a number of things: television, radio, music, gambling, computer games, food, drink, or whatever else blocks our relationship with God. Therefore we ought to fast from those things as well if they are indeed keeping us from a deep relationship with Christ.

As Pope Benedict XVI said: “Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.”

Appropriately, allow me to close with the words of Pope Benedict XVI given to us for this Lenten Season: “Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God. May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent.

“May the Blessed Virgin Mary, accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.”