The title of my reflection for this Ash Wednesday is,
“The Message In Ashes.”
Today is Ash Wednesday.
What’s the message in ashes?
Sometimes we might have that question - but we best not
ask it.
We see a dark marble urn on a shelf over a fireplace. We
begin staring at it, butwe dare not
ask, “Is that the remains of someone you loved?”
We see around someone’s neck a golden chain - that has on
it a tiny - rosary bead size - see through glass something - with something
grey inside - and we get the feeling - that we’re looking at a tiny ash remains
of someone.
The message in those ashes seems to be: “It’s hard to let
go of those we love.”
We see on a shelf - a see through plastic box - with
charred wood inside and the picture of burnt down home.We can ask about that. “Was that your home?
Did it burn down?” And the person whose shelf holds that picture of a burnt
house charred wood tells us about a home
they lived in - that burnt to the ground and all was lost - pictures, records,
certificates, the precious mementos of a lifetime - a good 17 years ago.
It’s Ash Wednesday and a person is walking down a street
till they come to a church. That person hears music and drops into church to
see what’s going on. They hear a sermon and then they see people coming up the
aisles to get black ashes - thumbed into their forehead -in the shape of a rough looking cross. They
sensethe scene has a sense of the
sacred, the mysterious, life and death. They get the gist of what is happening.
And then they go up themselves to
receive the ashes and hear the words, “Remember that you are dust and into dust you shall return.” as ashes
are thumbed into their brain.
They ask someone afterwards - in the parking lot, “What
was that all about?”
And a stranger tells a stranger, “It’s Ash Wednesday -
the beginning of Lent.”
What’s the message in the ashes?
“We’re reminded today that we have 40 days - called
“Lent” -to reflect upon our lives -
what’s important - what lasts and what doesn’t last.
Toys break - the little girl loses her doll or her
blankie - or friends when her daddy
loses his job and the family has to move to another state - for another job.
Teenagers play sports and their team has a horrible year
- losing game after game after game. A kid doesn’t make the play, the team, the
National Honor Society.Grandma dies and
they say what they used to say year’s earlier: “Life is not fair.”
Young people start to date and they get dumped and their
feelings are crushed. They get married and they discover the better and the
worse - and sometimes the worse is when they get burnt.
What’s the message in the ashes?
Lent is a season - 40 days to fast from too much food or
drink or TV - but to do all that in secret and not to show off or to toot one’s
own horn about what we are doing for Lent.
Lent is the time to take gained time and visit or call and
spend some sacred time with people who are shut ins - or to take long walks to
figure out life.
Lent is 40 days to do what Jesus did - to go into the
desert - where no one is - and discover the within. Lent is a time to pray -
alone - there are public prayers of course - but the prayer Jesus is talking
about in today’s gospel is inner room prayer - secret prayer that nobody sees
but me and God.
The title of my homily is, “The Message In Ashes.”
What hit me this morning is all the above - but
especially the following message: Ashes are a sign of movement towards the
invisible - towards the great values - towards the Invisible God.
"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."
Zora Neale Hurston
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
TEMPTATION:
WHOSE FAULT IS IT?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this
6th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Temptation: Whose Fault Is It?”
A couple of months ago there
were articles in the papers and on National Public Radio that Pope Francis
wants to change the Our Father.
I read the articles back then -
but didn’t give them enough time and thought and study.
So when I read today’s first
reading from James and his comments about temptation, I decided to do a little
research on what I might have missed a
few months ago in Pope Francis’ comments.
LETTER OF JAMES
James says, “No one
experiencing temptation should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God is not
subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one. Rather each person
is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire.Then desire conceives and brings forth sin,
and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.”[James 1: 13-15.]
That’s rather dogmatic. That’s
rather clear. Don’t blame God [POINT FINGER] when it comes to being destroyed
by a temptation.Check out those other
four fingers pointing back on ourselves.
That text from James uses the
language of pregnancy: desire, conception, birth - then death - an abortion of
one’s spirit. Powerful poetry - language - imagery.
And in reading various articles
and newspaper comments about Pope Francis’ comments about the Our Father being
changed a bit - this text from James is used by various folks.
JUST ONE PHRASE
The hubbub is all about
changing the phrase “and lead us not into temptation” into “do not let us fall
into temptation.”
The pope and others want to
point out that the Our Father prayer is saying, “God doesn’t tempt us - God
does not tempt us into temptation - we do.” So we pray to God to not let us
fall into temptation.
That’s basically the question
in hand. That’s what the pope wants to possibly change. Right now theprayer can sound like it’ssort of saying that God leads people into
temptation - whereas God doesn’t do that.
NOT ENGLISH
We better add that we’re
dealing here with translations.
The Pope is aware that the
Italian church has been dealing with this since 2001, 2002, and 2008. The
Spanish speaking Catholic dioceses have also been studying this and suggesting
a basic change. Lately, the immediate situation is the French Church.
Most of the articles I was
reading last night talked about the prayer being started by Jesus in Aramaic.
In time, we next have 2 versions of that
prayer in Greek. We can find them in Luke 11: 3-4 and Matthew 6: 10-13.
Then we have the Vulgate. That’s
the Latin translation. Then in time we have the modern languages.
TO MAKE IT MORE COMPLEX AND COMPLICATED
To make it more complex and
more complicated the Our Father is a rooted prayer in the prayer psyche of so
many people.
So to change the wording, we’re
tinkering with some deep stuff here.
Everyone knows the prayer - and
this includes not just Catholics - but also our Protestant brothers and
sisters.
For example, most Protestant
scholars know that the addition of “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the
glory,” was added on long after the gospels were written - yet they are part of
so many traditions. In fact, the Catholic Church added it onto the prayer in
the Mass - but a bit further down in time.
To make it even more complex I
noticed someone said the key word is not
the verb “to lead” but the noun “temptation”. That word “temptation” is the
word and issue to change - and to change the prayer to say, “test” not
“temptation”.
CONCLUSION
I would think that they might change the Our
Father a slight bit in our future. But when? My bet would be on when the next
big revision of the Mass prayers takes place. Many agree that the prayers we
have now at Mass - are tied too tight to the Latin prayers - and for our
English Speaking world, a better translation is necessary. One was made - but
pushed aside - for the one we have now - but Pope Francis recently said, “We
need to get a better translation into local languages.”
I assume I will be dead - when
and if this happens - so in the meanwhile pray as one prays and do it well.
Amen.
