Ash Wednesday Reflection: Return to me with all your heart

Joel 2:12-18, 2 Cor. 5:30-6:2, Mt. 6:1-6.16-18. We begin the Season of Lent with the observance of Ash Wednesday which reminds us that we came from dust and to dust we shall return. Lent lasts forty days in imitation of the time Jesus spent in the desert before His public ministry. Lent is a Season to prepare us for more effective involvement in making sacrifice and devote ourselves to repentance and spiritual growth. During Lent, we seek to tune in to higher desire: longing for God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus places before us triple imperatives to help our longing for God: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

In prayer, we give glory and praise to God. In fasting, we make effort to give up all negative tendencies so that God can fill us with good things. While in almsgiving, we cultivate the habit of sharing what we have. All these three put together will help us make space within us for God and others. The ashes we receive today are the signs we wear to tell the world that we are work in progress. Like construction site, we are tearing down and building up again, reconstructing the messy interiors of our lives. More than construction sites, we are the site managers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians and interior decorators trying to complete God’s work in us. Our tools are not jackhammers, cement mixers or grader. Our tools are so much stronger than that: the hammer of prayer, the hard wood of fasting and concrete act of alms-giving should be much more effective this period. Today, we are challenged to seek ways to tear down walls of selfishness, indifference, pride and pettiness, to build connecting hallways of compassion, mercy, generosity and faith. As St Paul puts it in today's second reading, let us be “ambassadors for Christ".

May the Lord grant us a renewed heart and recreate in us His Spirit! Amen!! Good morning and happy Lenten Season!!!