Christ the Cornerstone

Lenten season is a time of healing and hope

Ash Wednesday (Feb. 17) and the First Sunday of Lent (Feb. 21) are early this year. This is a blessing. It gives us an earlier opportunity to experience the spiritual discipline and prayerful reflection that are the special graces of this season. Lent is a time of healing and hope, a period of intense preparation for the joy of Easter.

The distribution of ashes was a little different this year. According to the special instructions we received from the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship:

After blessing the ashes and sprinkling them with holy water in silence, the priest addresses those present, reciting once the formula found in the Roman Missal: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel,” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

At that point, the note continues, the priest “cleanses his hands, puts on a face mask, and distributes ashes to those who come to him or, if appropriate, he goes to those who are standing in their places.”

He then sprinkles the ashes on each person’s head “without saying anything.”

What was different in parishes throughout the world this year was the fact that, due to the pandemic, after sprinkling the ashes in silence, the admonition, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” was recited only once and not addressed to each person as he or she received the ashes. What was the same was the public recognition that we are all sinners who need the healing power of the Gospel.

The Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Lent (Mk 1:12-15) tells us that “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him” (Mk 1:12-13). The season of Lent recalls Jesus’ time in the desert, and it provides us with an opportunity to share in this experience through a renewed commitment to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

The first and second readings for this Sunday (Gn 9:8-15 and 1 Pt 3:18-22) reference God’s promise to Noah following the great flood that “devastated the Earth” (Gn 9:11) and nearly destroyed the entire human race. St. Peter explains that this flood “prefigured baptism ” (1 Pt 3:21).

Like the sacrament of our rebirth in Christ, the cleansing we experience during Lent “is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him” (1 Pt 3:21-22).

Lent is a time of spiritual renewal, a time to acknowledge our selfishness and sin, and a chance to overcome the temptations that distract us from living the Gospel values that define who we are as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ.

“Repent and believe in the Gospel” is the invitation we have received from our Savior, Jesus Christ. Along with the other Ash Wednesday admonition, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” this is a powerful reminder that there is more to life than the seductive promises of “the world, the flesh and the devil.” We do not live by bread alone, Jesus tells Satan. We have spiritual lives that can only be fed by the word of God which comes to us in the Scriptures, in the sacraments (especially the Eucharist) and in our service to our sisters and brothers in need.

Lent is the season for feeding our souls. It’s a time to heal the wounds caused by sin, and it’s an opportunity to let the grace of the Holy Spirit set us free from whatever chains bind us to this world and its sorrows. The rainbow, which signifies God’s promise to Noah, is “the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you” (Gn 9:12).

During Lent, we are all invited to spend time with Jesus in the desert. To accept this invitation, we must turn away from all the things that distract us from communication with God in prayer. We also have to abstain from those activities (however good in and of themselves) that divert our attention from genuine spiritual growth.

Finally, to truly experience the spiritual growth offered to us during this holy season, we have to be generous stewards of all the gifts God has given us.

May this Lent be a time of healing and hope for all. May we grow closer to Christ, and each other, this season of Lent. †