Some Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of an emptying that continues throughout the forty days of Lent. In the Philippines we call the Liturgical Season of Lent cuaresma, from the Latin word quadragesima, or forty. Today, Ash Wednesday, is like that metabolism boost at the beginning of a diet wherein one’s body is made to go through a bit of a shock at the sudden, unexpected change. This is also why Lent is a great time to start a diet. Though losing weight isn’t quite the goal for Lent, a spiritual and physical emptying happening concurrently moves us closer to the real goal like a jumpstarter. Spirit and body are so intertwined that physical hunger ignites a spiritual hunger as well. In a world where instant gratification has become the norm, Lent affords a break that we as spiritual beings desperately need. I for one had been looking forward to Ash Wednesday this year with much anticipation. Once again I’m reminded of the phrase “invisible made visible”. Our spiritual growth isn’t something that’s readily perceivable through the senses, but that sensation of physical hunger makes spiritual hunger more palpable. We are better able to get in touch with the longing in our core — a longing that can only be satisfied by Him Who feeds us. This deliberate removal of myself from the things I hold dear in this earthly world brings me to increased intimacy with my Creator.

It’s the same reason Lent is the perfect time to declutter the house. As we unburden our homes of the stuff that tends to creep in and pile up through the year, we begin to make room for order, and thus simplicity and beauty, to shine. Especially where we live in the first world, where there is an abundance of the material, our homes have the potential to become storehouses of junk, not necessarily because our things are not functional or helpful, but because their sheer number rarely leaves room for the special to be given pride of place. Likewise, when Lent is not observed properly, Easter becomes just one more day to feast and make merry. Lent for me needs to become the arduous journey to Easter, for my spirit to be suffused to the brim with the joy of Christ’s Resurrection. How much sweeter Easter becomes when the sacrifices of Lent are allowed to burrow deep into one’s soul.

Once more this Lent I will try to pick up all the bits and pieces of my scattered existence (the natural effects of a scattered brain), and pray for the grace to fuse all of these into some form closer to a unified whole — one better attuned to my Savior, at once stronger and yet more capable of bending to follow His Will. Aisa and I were discussing this the other day, how the past two years have been marked with lessons on detachment for both of us — we were on parallel journeys and didn’t know it. My journey as I approach middle age is geared towards a preparation for the inevitable — death. I don’t want to get to the end of my life not being able to let go, because I hadn’t learned the lesson of letting go bit by bit. Despite our living in the same house and having many shared experiences, this learning looks very different from her perspective as it does from mine. As I detach myself every Lent from things, places, ungodly thoughts and concerns, people, I am brought to a different plane in my relationship with God. It’s so easy in the day-to-day to develop an attitude of extreme self-reliance, of being attached to the idea that “I” make things happen. By emptying my personal and spiritual spaces of their familiar comforts, a clearer vision of reality appears: I am a creature wholly dependent on God for my every need — He is Who sustains me. In removing the inessential and dusting off the crannies in my heart and soul, I prepare myself to partake in greater spiritual gifts and graces I had previously been oblivious to. My very human hands tend to clutch and grab and hold on, stubbornly, tenaciously. Lent is a time to allow a prying open of these fingers, slowly, sometimes painfully… in order to receive and let His blessings flow more freely, that I may become a more suitable conduit of grace for those around me. This makes Lent a special gift indeed from the Redeemer, Who knows our every need.

More from my reading list today:

“A junk drawer is the classic repository for what we are meant to leave behind. Not only does it symbolize our histories, but it also reveals the speed at which we lived through them: how did a sunflower seed wind up among the rubber bands and old corks, and this seventy-five-year-old baptismal gown stuffed into a brown paper sack?”

from Cleaning Out the Junk, an excerpt from Paula Huston’s book Simplifying the Soul

Another point, however: there are some Catholics, such as myself, who won’t have an ash-marked forehead today, because Ash Wednesday is not part of the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox observation of the Great Fast, which begins on Clean Monday, two days ago (following Cheese-fare Sunday, the last day dairy products can be eaten).

– from “When a man leaves on a journey, he must know where he is going. Thus with Lent…”. This is interesting to me because I have friends who are considering Eastern Catholicism, which in turn piqued my daughter’s.

From the Holy Father:

This wilderness is made up of “the aridity and poverty of words, life and values, of secularism and the culture of materialism which enclose people within a worldly horizon and detach them from any reference to transcendence. In such an atmosphere the sky above us is dark, because veiled with clouds of selfishness, misunderstanding and deceit. Nonetheless, even for the Church today, the wilderness can become a period of grace, because we have the certainty that even from the hardest rock God can cause the living water to gush forth, water which quenches thirst and restores strength”.

– Benedict XVI: “The time leading up to Easter is a time of ‘metanoia’, a time of change and penance….”

And might not be immediately identifiable as Lenten reading, but this made me tear up today. A must read: Frodo Is In Africa. Dear fellow Catholics, take heart!

What “surge in atheism”? There is no such thing, outside Starbucks booths and university hallways. By one estimate cited in God Is Back, in 1900, 67% of the world population was composed of members of the four major religions. In 2005 it was 73% of world. By 2050 it could be 80% of the world. Atheism is at its weakest point in memory, and it is waning.

And Christianity isn’t just surging by some vague demographic necessity; it is surging like a springtime. Our new Christians are filled with unpredictable energy and unabashed enthusiasm, unencumbered by the baggage we carry in the West.

A Postscript: God Has a Mean Sense of Humor

Not going to bore with details, but yesterday I thought my grocery budget wasn’t going to last us ’til the end of the month. Imagine my surprise after writing in my prayer journal today and finding some money that the hubby had given me weeks ago… inside the pages of the Breviary, which I hadn’t opened in a while as I was using Divine Office online… today I switched back to the books. And He did it again! I cannot wait to get to Heaven and ask Him how hard He laughs when He plays these little jokes on me. I should have trusted instead of worrying. Thank You Lord.