Keeping Secrets

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Welcome to Lent. Sounds like an odd greeting, but I mean it. The secret is out. I love Lent. I love it because I am the kind of person who is willing to admit that she needs structure and ritual. It makes me feel calm and secure. If you are Catholic, you may likely understand.

Today is the day that we are reminded of the truth about life. The ashes on our forehead remind us of the human condition affected by sin. Easy enough to understand, but is it? Today we live in a world that everyday denies that sin even exists.

In the imposition of ashes, today, we are admitting our guilt before God and expressing our desire for inward conversion. This sign is the first step in our journey of conversion. It takes us to the sacrament of reconciliation, then to the Passion and then to salvation in the Resurrection at Easter.

This is what we must remember.

We are made up of two substances. A body and a soul. It is no secret that our bodies die. But what is often difficult to remember or understand is that our soul (the invisible part of us that animates our bodies) is wounded when we sin.

During Lent, we are offered a beautiful prescription. We learn from today's reading that what our souls need is to pray, to fast, and to give alms. But the key is that we must do these three things in secret.

Why is secret? When these three things (prayer, fasting and almsgiving) are done in secret, it is God who sees your true intentions. These offerings are done in communion with God, alone. This is because it is God who heals the soul.

The Real Measure of a Man

Mk 7:14-23

Today's Gospel reading takes us to the scene where Jesus tries to explain the root of what defiles us, what spoils us, what makes us really rotten. Keep in mind what was going on was that Jesus was speaking to a Hebrew crowd who understood the customs of their elders and the strict rubrics that those customs demanded. Like the reading from yesterday, Jesus was teaching that God's design for holiness did not come from the mandates of man.

In today's reading, Jesus explains that man is not defiled (or made unclean or un-holy) by what he eats. Rather, man is doomed by what is inside of him and what comes out of him. Jesus explains that inside a man's heart, rests the real measure of the man. It is from a man's thoughts (or his heart) that come the rottenness of "evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance and folly." Likewise we can understand the goodness of a man by his ability and willingness to love.

The menu is liberated, but now what?

This is the whole point of our lives. We are all given the gift of some measure of time and experience to perfect our souls. We are all born with the indelible mark of original sin. But with baptism we are born into God's Kingdom and given a new life. This new life is a spiritual life. To tell you the truth, I never really understood this whole "born again" concept. But when you understand the purpose of your life is to perfect your soul, it becomes much easier to understand that baptism opens up the grace needed to perfect the rottenness and imperfections. It is an exhausting process, to be sure.

I am comforted in knowing that God has given us the sacraments for assistance and His very self as a model, guide and companion. He has also given us the communion of saints-- our friends who have come before us who have won their battle and stand ready to assist. I think of Saint Scholastica whose feast day is today. She was a model of sanctity, as all saints are. But she was also one of my favorite pragmatists.

I like to think of the story when she asked her brother (St. Benedict, no less) to stay with her one evening, as she had had a vision that that evening would be their last together on Earth. Saint Benedict did not want to stay because by staying he would be breaking an important rule of his Monastery. Then, in her wisdom, St. Scholastic asked her favor of God. Knowing the enormity of her love for her brother, God granted St. Scholastica a perfect storm that forced St. Benedict and his companions to stay the night. This is, of course, because God controls the weather. God saw to it that Monastery mandates did not rule over the generosity of God's love.

So centuries later, we look to Saint Scholastica for the assistance with the storms in our heart and pray for her intercession that we measure up to what God designed for us and we evidence who we are by what we do.