Fasting, ashes, and sackcloth have signified sorrow, mourning, penitence, atonement, and humility since the Book of Genesis. We read in the Bible’s opening book how, when Jacob was told that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal he "tore his garments, put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned his son for many days." In Jonah we learn how, when the prophet proclaimed that which was to befall Nineveh, the people . . . proclaimed a fast "and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth . . . and the king sat in ashes." And, as we will hear in Sunday's gospel, Jesus fasted for forty days in the wilderness. Only at the end of that time did the evil spirit tempt him.
We are not called to fasting and penance for the sake of fasting and penance. Fasting is not meant to be its own goal. If undertaken without the desire for interior conversion or divorced from prayer it is nothing more than Weight Watchers without the points or Oprah's exhortations. We read in Isaiah: "This is the fast I desire . . . to unlock the chains of wickedness . . .to let the oppressed go free . . . to share your bread with the hungry . . . and not to ignore your own kin."
Lent’s fasting, prayer, and alms giving must be accompanied by inner conversion. In his book God or Nothing Robert Cardinal Sarah of Guinea wrote: "The relief we must bring to the poor and to afflicted people is not just material but spiritual." He goes on to quote Pope Francis' exhortation Evangelii Gaudium "I want to say, with regret, that the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care."
One proof of that discrimination was obvious in the sins committed by hospital administrators, nursing home administrators, public health officials, and many others, and medical amateurs who forced the critically ill and dying elderly to die alone, terrified, uncomforted by the presence of even one family member at the bedside. How many were deprived of confession, absolution, and last rites for no good reason. Hysteria and health care do not mix well. As was true of the prophets before Him, Jesus' call to conversion and penance is not to be seen only in outward signs such as ashes, sackcloth, and fasting.
All three are hypocritical when divorced from interior conversion, when they are nothing more than a form of virtue signaling. Lent is not meant to be a season of 'give ups.' It is more important that it be a time for taking on. Taking on extra time for, prayer, reading the gospel, or contemplation. The time required need not be dramatic. Ten or fifteen extra minutes are perfectly adequate in the context of overly busy lives. Our ability and desire to care for others, our willingness to attend to the needs of others, can only grow from prayer and meditation on scripture.
As the late Jesuit Father Stanley Marrow wrote in his commentary on John's Gospel: ". . . loving with utmost generosity and utter selflessness, even to laying down of one’s life, is not uniquely Christian. What distinguishes, or must distinguish, Christians is: when they love, they love as Christ loved them and because he loved them."
Before washing your face tonight look at the smudge of ashes on your forehead, no matter how faint it has become. Ask what it means to you. What does it mean for the next forty days. And then pray the words of the responsorial psalm, the great Miserere.
"A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.”
Indeed, reciting this psalm—Psalms 51—daily
for the next forty days
would be a most excellent Lenten practice
that would yield much fruit.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise."
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The photo is from several years ago on Ash Wednesday at Campion Center in Weston, MA.
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