Homily for Ash Wednesday

Homily for Ash Wednesday

March 6, 2019

Collect
St. Mary, Landover Hills, Md.

As we prayed the Collect at the beginning of this most solemn liturgy, did you notice its warlike tone?  On Ash Wednesday we “begin this campaign of Christian service,” “we take up battle against spiritual evils,” we are “armed with weapons of self-restraint.”

The 40 days of Lent highlight for us an ancient Christian perspective, one that goes back to Jesus himself, viz. that the Christian life is warfare.  Our 40 days are modeled on the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting and praying in the desert after his baptism, being tempted by the Devil.  This story is always the gospel reading for the 1st Sunday of Lent.  So Jesus did spiritual battle with Satan, and he was victorious.     

During his public ministry, Jesus continued waging war against the Devil—healing the sick and disabled, driving out demons, and finally rising from the grave.  All of these were signs that the power of God in Jesus is more powerful than any weapon the Devil possesses.  One of Jesus’ little parables speaks of “a strong man fully armed [who] guards his palace” and keeps his possessions safe; but “one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him” and claims the spoils.  The strong man is the Devil, claiming humanity as his possession; the stronger man is Jesus Christ, who overcomes him and claims us as his own (cf. Luke 11:21-22).

Thru the ages this spiritual combat continues.  Pope Francis reminds us often that the Devil is real, and he uses many tricks to lure us away from God and keep us under his own control:  witchcraft, various superstitions, Satanic cults, pornography and the worship of sex, the lust for power and fame, a consumer culture, the discouragement that affects us when we experience our own sinfulness or witness the terrible sins of others, including the clergy.   

Lent reminds us of the battle.  We’re at war, and we need Christ, the Devil’s powerful conqueror, if we’re to be victorious.  The sin in our own lives is the mark of Satan’s attempt to claim us and keep us as his trophies.  So today we arm ourselves with self-restraint, as the Collect says, taking up the weapons of Christ, particularly prayer, fasting, and care for the poor.  We battle evil by connecting ourselves to Jesus, by doing good to others as he did, by saying NO to ourselves in some way so as to be free to say YES to Christ.

We might engage in traditional bodily fasting.  Or we might fast from some of the TV we constantly watch, or from other screens, and spend more time with spouse or children or parents, or with the Bible.  We might practice the self-restraint of safer driving habits or of getting out of bed promptly when the alarm goes off so as to begin our day calmly—and maybe with a moment of prayer.  We might find a way to serve the needy thru a parish or diocesan program; if a justice of the Supreme Court—Bret Kavanaugh—can continue to take a monthly turn at a Catholic Charities soup kitchen, it’s hard for us to say we’re too busy to do some form of service.

I’ll conclude by quoting a passage from Pope Francis’s message for Lent wherein he speaks of the traditional practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving:

Fasting, that is, learning to change our attitude toward others and all of creation, turning away from the temptation to ‘devour’ everything to satisfy our voracity and being ready to suffer for love, which can fill the emptiness of our hearts. Prayer, which teaches us to abandon idolatry and the self-sufficiency of our ego, and to acknowledge our need of the Lord and his mercy. Almsgiving, whereby we escape from the insanity of hoarding everything for ourselves in the illusory belief that we can secure a future that does not belong to us. And thus to rediscover the joy of God’s plan for creation and for each of us, which is to love him, our brothers and sisters, and the entire world, and to find in this love our true happiness.