Reflection on Today's Readings, Ash Wednesday, Year B, February 17th, 2021
Texts: Joel 2:12-18; Ps. 51:3-6.13.14.17; 2 Cor. 5:20-6:2; Mtt. 6:1-6.16-18
Season of Lent is a privilege moment in the Church and in the life of every Christian, especially Catholics. It is the Season of repentance; season in which we are called to return to God our creator. This call is clear in today's first reading where prophet Joel says, "Even now, says the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and tear your hearts and not your garments.'" The initiative is of the Lord; it is God who has called us out of our sins to return to Him. He requires from us a whole hearted devotion to Him. Some of us are yet to give Him our whole heart, we still hide from Him certain aspects of our lives. He wants to be present in every aspects of our lives. We need to ask ourselves individually: which aspect of my life is still hidden from God? They are hidden aspects of our lives, not because God cannot see it but because we are yet to give them up for God to touch and turn them around. God said to prophet Jeremiah thus: "When you search for me, you will find me; when you search wholeheartedly for me". This return to God must be wholehearted, not half-hearted. A wholehearted devotion is true and sincere. Hence, in another words, God wants a true and sincere devotion.
The return to God must also be with fasting, which is the subjection of the desires of the flesh to the spirit. As we return to God, we must prepare to discipline ourselves and to accept discipline from God. Fasting helps us to place the needs of the soul first and above bodily needs. Fasting helps us to grow virtues like patience, perseverance, temperance, self-control etc. It is also worthy to know that fasting is not only about food but also bad habits. Hence, fasting helps us to prune ourselves. It, then, becomes a means of training oneself to grow in virtues and to become open to God's grace. Fasting disposes us to receive grace and divine visitation. Pope Francis, in this year's lenten message, says, "Fasting, experienced as a form of self-denial, helps those who undertake it in simplicity of heart to rediscover God’s gift and to recognize that, created in his image and likeness, we find our fulfilment in him. In embracing the experience of poverty, those who fast make themselves poor with the poor and accumulate the treasure of a love both received and shared. In this way, fasting helps us to love God and our neighbour, inasmuch as love, as Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, is a movement outwards that focuses our attention on others and considers them as one with ourselves (cf. Fratelli Tutti, 93)."
We are also to return to God with weeping, and with mourning. The same thought is expressed differently thus: "tear your hearts and not your garments." This is a call to have a humble contrite heart; it is to feel sorrow for one's sins. King David calls it a broken spirit, a broken, contrite heart. He says, "Sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a broken, contrite heart you never scorn." Prophet Isaiah adds, "when all things were made by me and all belong to me?- declares the Lord. But my eyes are drawn to the person of humble and contrite spirit, who trembles at my word" (66:2). We must be sorry for our sins as we return to God.
Prophet Joel makes the second call for return. The first call is by God; He tells us with what attitude to return to Him. In the second call prophet Joel calls us to return to God because He is merciful and gracious. This expresses the second aspect of the message of Lent. Repentance is possible because God is merciful and gracious. The message of Lent is about Repentance and the mercy of God. Prophet Joel says, "Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy, and repent of evil." During Lent we approach the mercy of God. It is because God is merciful that we repent. The mercy of God gives us hope that makes our Repentance possible. Hence, Lent is a season of hope for sinners; it is the hope that our lives will blossom once again if we return to God. Hence, Pope Francis says, "Yet Lent is precisely the season of hope, when we turn back to God who patiently continues to care for his creation which we have often mistreated (cf. Laudato Si’, 32-33; 43-44). Saint Paul urges us to place our hope in reconciliation: “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20)" (Lenten Message, 2021).
Today's second reading reminds us that all our Lenten observances are not what make us righteous. St. Paul says, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Our righteousness is the righteousness of God, not ours. It is not ours because it is not the result of our work; it is the result of the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, our Lenten observances are not useless; they open us up to receive the righteousness of God; they make us receptive and open to receive God's grace and presence in our lives. We can see our Lenten observances in the light of a child raising up the hands for his/her mother to carry him/her. The raising of the hands does not carry the baby but the hands of the mother. As the raising up of hands of a child does not carry the child, so also our Lenten observances do not give grace by itself but only make us receptive and open to receive grace and divine blessings. Since God is always willing and ready to give grace and abide with whoever is receptive and open, we always receive grace and divine visitation through our Lenten observances.
St. Paul admonishes us not to receive God's grace in vain. Lent is a season in which we receive grace upon grace through our Lenten observances, we are to ensure that the graces are fruitful. We have to be channels of grace and divine visitation to others as we bear fruits of love, faith and hope.
St. Paul also goes further to hit on another point in Lent: the season of salvation. He says, "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The Lenten season is the period of salvation; it is the period we experience God's mercy and we are saved from our sins. It is the period we renew the face of the earth through prayer, fasting and almsgivings. It is the period that cumulates in the memorial of God's saving works in time and space and also prepares us to celebrate it so as to benefit from the saving works. Lent helps us to participate in the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The participation is in twofold: to benefit from it and to join in the work of redemption through prayer, fasting, sharing of God's words and charity.
The gospel reading tells us what should be the motive of our Lenten observances. The motive of our Lenten observances should not be to win praise, fame or approval from man, but should be to please God.
Lord God, we thank for the gift of Lenten season, the season of grace, the season of salvation; grant that our participation in this year Lent may win us graces in abundance and your salvation. Amen.
Fr.Andrew Olowomuke
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