ASH WEDNESDAY
2018
YEAR OF THE
YOUTH
March 6, 2019
Jesus, I trust in you!
“Between the porch and the altar,
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say: ‘Spare, O Lord, your
people, and make not your heritage a reproach…’”
The prophet Joel wrote at a time
when the southern kingdom of Judah was devastated by a plague of locusts. The
land was laid barren and the people suffered heavy losses. And so, the prophet
calls for a time of penance: a time of fasting and sacred assembly: “Blow the
trumpet in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly…” This call to penance was
done because the Lord said to the people: “Even now, return to me with your
whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning…Return to the Lord. For
gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in
punishment.” The time of penance was necessitated by the plague. But such an
occasion can only be called because of the mercy of God. The people can return
to the Lord because the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and rich
in kindness. He is relenting in punishment. If the Lord were not so, then
penance would have been useless. If the Lord is unmoved by acts of
mortification, then why engage in penance?
Ash Wednesday this year finds the
Church in a difficult situation. The crisis of clerical sins has brought about
a severe beating for the Church. The scandal has risen to the highest offices
of the Church. We have been brought low in the sight of people on account of
the sins of our spiritual fathers.
In such crisis, the Lord tells us
to return to him. And he seeks genuine conversion: Rend your hearts and not
your garments. Tearing one’s garment looks dramatic enough but it would amount
to putting up a show. But the Lord does not want a show. He wants conversion to
be sincere. He wants this conversion to come from the heart. To rend one’s
heart means to radically cut off ourselves from the roots of our sins. Repentance
cannot be sincere if there is no desire to reform. Repentance involves a
severing of ties and attachment to sin.
Our sorrow for sins must come from
the heart. We are sorry that we have offended God. We are sorry for hurting
others. In this crisis of clerical abuse, people kept talking about how victims
were traumatized and rightly should we say so. But we will miss the point if we
do not realize how such sins have offended the Lord. We will miss the point if
we do not realize how such sins have defiled consecrations to the Lord. The
sins of clerical abuse are so offensive because they violate the clergy’s
consecration to God. That is why priests have to weep before the altar, before
the altar where they must stand undefiled in order to worthily offer sacrifice.
Priests have to weep before the altar because the altar makes the offering
sacred. Priests have to weep before the altar because they place on the altar
the spotless Victim who is Christ and therefore, by their lives of
self-abnegation, they must lay down their lives together with Christ.
Dearly beloved, as we enter into
this time of penance, may I humbly ask you to remember us, your priests, in
your prayers. Many of us have fallen. We have fallen to sin. We have defiled
our consecration. We have become unworthy ministers of the Lord. Like the
public sinners of old who stand at the doorsteps of the Church to beg for the
prayers of the faithful, we priests beg you to pray for us. Pray that we may
acknowledge our sins and take responsibility for them. Pray that we may
sincerely be sorrowful for our sins. Pray that we may make amends for them.
Pray that we may rise and return to the Lord. “For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always: ‘Against you alone have I sinned, and done what
is evil in your sight.’”
O Mary conceived without sin, pray
for us who have recourse to thee!
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