Ash Wednesday's guide to a successful Lenten Season

This is some of my writing... obviously for church!

Ash Wednesday’s guide to a successful Lenten Season

‘Remember O’ man you are dust and to dust you shall return’ (Genesis 3.19)

This is the traditional meaning of Ash Wednesday as I was taught to believe in my Catechism classes in the Roman Catholic Church.  We were taught that we were to give up something we liked, for example, chocolate, television, something that was hard for us to live without for the 40 days of the Lenten season.  We were taught that this was how we were supposed to emulate Christ in his 40 days of fasting in the desert before he fully took on his ministry.

Now that I have matured in my faith, I now believe that the “giving up” part of the Lenten tradition is actually an immature way of imparting the true meaning and method of the fast, the true cleansing that the fast is meant to bring about.  The “giving up” kind of fasting actually can work against the true meaning of spiritual fasting, thereby bringing about the type of fasting that God frowns upon.

Matthew 6:1-4; 14-18

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you

14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. .  (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206:1-21&version=NIV)

“The imposition of the ashes is hypocritical if there is no corresponding change in behavior to renounce sin and repent. The applying of the ashes, fasting and penance must also be accompanied by gestures of peace and solidarity with the poor and suffering and a resolve to refrain from sinning. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of repentance, penance and a spiritual flowering of the spirit….”  (http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Society/ash-wednesday.html)

Repentance, penance and a spiritual flowering of the spirit!  What beautiful ideas!  And to think that in this time we live in when everything we do, hear and say moves at the speed of light, we can STILL be able to repent, do penance and have a spiritual flowering of the spirit, only now we can do it faster than ever in world history.

Repentance is coming to the realization that we have wronged, whether to ourselves, our friends, family or acquaintances, or to society in general.  Once coming to this realization, we bring our wrongs to God and ask for forgiveness.

Penance is righting the wrong in some way.  Some wrongs cannot be corrected directly, but that is the beauty of penance.  It’s up to US to make the correction in both our hearts and our physical universe, and when we feel the quiet personal satisfaction from the penitent action, we ask God to be sure we have fixed it.

The process of repentance and penance should be a personal experience between an individual and God, as expressed in the passages from Matthew 6.  The Lenten process is like preparing our spiritual ground for a garden, pulling unwanted grasses and weeds, making the rows, fertilizing and planting the seeds, and the actions of Lent, we prepare our internal garden for the spiritual flowering of the spirit!

‘Remember O’ man you are dust and to dust you shall return’ (Genesis 3.19)

The Ashes we take upon our forehead reminds us that we were and are made of the clay of the Earth, our spirit was breathed into us from God, so whatever our trespasses here on Earth in this clay should be repented (taking personal responsibility), perform penance (helping other clay beings to a better place), and create a continuous spiritual flowering throughout all the days of our lives.