Ash Wednesday

Today Jesus is reminding us of a tough lesson. He tells us to stop being hypocrites, to stop looking like Christians on the outside while being self-centered, arrogant, and egotistical on the inside. 

The word "hypocrite" comes from the Greek word for “actor". Actors pretend to be someone they're not. That's OK on stage, but not in real life.

Jesus is encouraging us to take off our masks, to stop pretending, to once again be true to our true selves. That is a hard lesson for us, for two reasons.

First, we don't like to admit that we sometimes act like hypocrites. But the fact is, we do. We try to deceive, to give the right impression, even if it's false. We try to hide our motives. We are all hypocrites in some way.

Second, we are afraid that if we take off our mask, God may reject us. And no one wants to be rejected.

But Jesus gives us a reason to trust him enough to accept this hard lesson. The reason is that he already knows us through and through, and even so, he loves us. He repeats this three times, when he says that the Father sees what we do in secret. That means he has seen all of the most selfish, vitriolic, and morose chapters of our ongoing interior monologues. Everything. He knows it all. And yet, he still loves us with the tender love of the perfect Father, the perfect friend. He still wants us to live close to him - closer and closer, actually.

That's why he keeps telling us to give alms and pray and fast "in secret". He wants us to stay close to him, to live our lives in intimate friendship with him.

The ashes that we use today are meant to remind us of these things.

First, they remind us that we are sinners. Although we are children of God, at the same time we are still children of this fallen world. Ashes are lifeless dust. Insofar as we still give in to our tendencies to selfishness and sin, we too are lifeless dust. Sin separates us from God, who is the source of all life. Without God's redeeming spirit in us, we would have no hope of eternal life.

Second, the ashes remind us that our sins, our acts of selfishness, cause damage. These ashes are made from the palm branches we used on Palm Sunday last year. They symbolized Christ's victory over sin. Our sins forfeit that victory. They destroy the life that God means us to live, just as the palm branches from last year's Palm Sunday were destroyed to make these ashes.

Third, and most importantly, the ashes remind us that in spite of our sins, in spite of our deep-seeded selfishness, God hasn't given up on us. Christ is our Redeemer! He claims us for his own. We still have a mission in his Kingdom; he still wants us to be his ambassadors. Yes, we are marked with ashes, because we are sinners, but the mark is given in the sign of Christ's cross, which won for us the grace of a fresh start and a new life. We are marked on our foreheads, because Christ wants us to go boldly into the world as his representatives. He is not ashamed of us; he wants our friendship. He is our Savior.

Jesus wants the truth and the power of his love to penetrate and transform our lives in a fresh way this Lent. But he needs us to take off our masks in order for that to happen. He needs us to peel them away, like peeling away an old bandage, so that his grace can heal our wounds. He points to three masks in particular. 

First, we have the mask the blocks our relationship with God. This is the one Jesus points to when he tells us to work on our prayer life, to pray from the heart, sincerely, not just to go through the motions.

Second, we have the mask that blocks our relationship with other people. This is the one Jesus points to when he tells us to give alms in secret. He wants us to open our hearts to our neighbors. He wants us to care about them, to be interested in them, to look for ways to serve and encourage them instead of looking for ways to take advantage of them.

Third, we have the mask that blocks our own growth to maturity. This is the one Jesus points to when he tells us to fast in secret. He wants us to learn the art of self-governance and self-discipline, of humility and nobility. He wants to free us from the degrading slavery to our base instincts.

In this Mass, he offers us the grace we need to make a fresh start in our friendship with him. He offers us the strength we need to peel away whichever mask is blocking out his love, a love which never wavers. 

Let's accept this grace and put it to work. Let's not leave this Mass without having committed to peel away one of those masks, to move up a notch either in our relationship with God, or with our neighbor, or with ourselves. If we promise to do our part this Lent, we can be sure he will do his part.