Ash Wednesday

February 14, 2024

Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping,

and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto

the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful,slow to anger, and of great kindness,

and repenteth him of the evil.

(Joel ii. 12,13)

Today is the first day of Lent. Ash Wednesday marks the first of forty days of

Lent, in which you and I are exhorted to fast, abstain, and repent. Tradition has it that

Pope Gregory the Great ordered the custom of keeping Lent in the West in the 6 th

century and was the first to call today the Dies Cinerum, or Day of Ashes. Ashes in the

Old Testament were coupled with sackcloth, and they were outward and visible signs

of repentance and the desire to be changed by the goodness of God. In the early

Middle Ages, Aelfric, the English Benedictine abbot, wrote

We read in both the Old Law and in the New Testament, that the men who repented of their sins

bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at

the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our

sins during the Lenten fast.

You will notice that the Medievals were sprinkled with ashes rather than anointed with

oil and ashes, as is our contemporary custom. At any rate, the outward and visible sign

is meant to lead us to inward and spiritual confession, contrition, and satisfaction.

The three parts of penitence come to us, again, from the Middle Ages. What is

always the greatest danger with the Sacrament of penance or confession is, of course,

its relation to the external and visible world of other people. The danger is heralded

by our Lord in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus is speaking about fasting, but Jewish

Tradition of His day linked fasting to abstinence and penance. He says,

When ye fast, be not not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they

may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou

fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy

Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

Immature spirituality or bad religion is forever about keeping up appearances. Keeping up

appearances is done only in relation to what other people think about us. Jesus is not

interested in what others think about us but what God thinks about us. Fasting, abstinence,

and penance are done in relation to God and for our betterment. The immature

Christian is moved and defined by what other people think about him, or what he

thinks other men ought to think of him! Our Lord makes clear that such outward and

visible displays and parades of holiness are unholy and arrogant. The true meaning of

penance or penitence must involve an inward turning of the heart or soul to claim and

confess our sins, to be sorrowful over them, and to make amends by God’s Grace.

Confession is all about the soul’s journey into God.

Our Lord’s admonition is not wholly dissimilar to what the ancient Greeks

taught about self-knowledge. Originally, the Greeks appealed for Divine Truth at the

Oracle of Delphi. From this place, tradition has it that the Seven Sages of Greece or the god

Apollo, exhorted their Greek devotees with these words: Know thyself. Confession in

Christianity and know thyself are really two similar concepts. In either case, we are

encouraged to confess and admit who and what we are, our limitations, and our desire

to be made better. Confession is self-knowledge. When we confess who and what we are,

we are honest about what we have done and what we have left undone in relation to God and

His goodness. When we acknowledge our limitations, thanking Him for strength, we

nevertheless express sorrow or contrition over our weaknesses and failures. When we

long to do better, to make satisfaction for our errors and sins, we desire to open

ourselves to a process of advancement and betterment that the Divine or God alone

can bring about. Neither the ancient Greeks nor the ancient Jews ever imagined

becoming better without being made better by the Good or God.

But there is something radically new in what Jesus Christ brought into the

world. As we prepare to undertake another Holy Lent that will lead us to Good

Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, we do well to inform our confession, contrition,

and satisfaction with the remarkable facts of Christ’s most holy Incarnation. With the

ancient Greeks and Jews, there was always the need for making atonement externally

and visibly, through the offering up of sacrificed animals, to appease the Divine wrath

or displeasure at man’s sins and failures. That the ancients could never make full

atonement for sins is obvious from the fact that they sacrificed animals for as long as

they lived. But even today, with Christ’s exhortation to a deeper and more personal

relationship with God, our Lord is preparing us for His own Sacrifice, which would

eradicate the necessity of all others. By rooting and grounding confession, contrition, and

satisfaction with the Father, Christ is laying the groundwork for what He is always doing

for us in His lifelong journey up to the Cross of His love.

Christ’s whole life is a fasting that always involves confession, contrition, and

satisfaction. Of course, Christ might be tempted by sin but eschews it and cleaves to the Good.

Christ knew no sin. But still, His whole life takes on our confession of sin, sorrow over sin,

and satisfaction for it. Christ knows us and He knows our sin. He alone, therefore, can

take it on, bear all its ugly effects, endure it, and finally conquer it. He is our confession

of sin, our sorrow over sin, and He makes atonement and satisfaction for it. He does what we

cannot do to establish a new pattern and model for the new life with the Father. He is

doing what the first Adam should have done but could not do. He puts Himself in our

shoes and walks us back to the Father who seeth in secret but will reward us openly. (idem)

Again, as St. Paul says, in his own enigmatic way, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who

knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Cor. v. 22) In some

mysterious way, the Word of God made flesh, was able to suffer and endure our sin,

express a sorrow over it that we cannot, and make satisfaction for it in a way that is

beyond our fallen nature’s capability. This is the satisfaction that the God-Man, Jesus

Christ, makes for us. He satisfies the need for sinful man to be returned to God. He

takes on our sin, takes in our sin, allows our sin to have its best go at himself, and He

finally conquers it through the purity of His heart and nature.

Today, Christ invites us to commence a Holy Lent. Our fasting and abstinence, our

confession, contrition, and satisfaction must be done in and through Jesus Christ. In this

season, we shall be invited to participate in the Salvific Life of our Lord. This means

that our pious dispositions and intentions must be rooted and grounded in the One

whose suffering and sacrifice alone give all meaning and hope to our redemption. In

Gesima Tide, we learned to journey with faith that seeks understanding. Our faith believes

that Christ has established a relation to the Father that He alone could effect. Fasting

and abstinence enable us to make a good confession, contrition, and satisfaction. Our pious

exercises have eternal merit only through what Christ has done for us. Christ’s fasting

and abstaining from the world, the flesh, and the Devil lead to the suffering and death that

will win our salvation. Christ’s confession, contrition, and satisfaction while expressing no

sin on His part, will be taken on by Christ as a confession of sin for us and on our behalf,

contrition and sorrow for sin for us and on our behalf, and He will make satisfaction for us

and on our behalf. In Christ alone, can we find the right relation of ourselves with our

Heavenly Father. In Christ alone, can we find satisfaction for our sins, as He alone can

return our humanity to God and re-present human nature to God for recreation and

redemption.

Now, I realize, this is all very difficult to understand. But if we try to believe

and imagine that He becomes something for us so that we might become something

beautiful for God, we might find it a bit easier. We end all our prayers with the words

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we believe that we shall have

the confidence to be accepted by the Father, forgiven by the Father, resurrected by the

Father, and redeemed and atoned to the Father. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we

believe that we can

Submit ourselves to God, Resist the devil, and he will flee from us.   Draw nigh to God, and he will

draw nigh to us. Cleanse our hands, as sinners; and purify our hearts, as double minded.   Be afflicted,

and mourn, and weep: let our laughter be turned to mourning, and our joy to heaviness.   Humbling

ourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift us up. (St. James iv. 7-10)

If we do this, our faith will find understanding in Jesus Christ, who has done for us what

we could not do. If we do this, our fasting and abstinence, our confession, contrition, and

satisfaction shall derive all efficacy from the good work of Jesus Christ for us, from the

Father, and through the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

©wjsmartin