“But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6: 3-4
By Philip Shano SJ
It’s Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Our liturgical seasons – Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter – are cyclical and move gracefully through the year. Today’s ashes, placed on our foreheads, are the remains of burning palms from last year’s Palm Sunday. Those ashes are a good reminder of all that we have lived with since last year’s Holy Week. We’ve come full circle.
Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return. That’s what the minister might utter as the ashes are placed on our foreheads. It’s a reminder of the mystery of life and death. Those who one day will gather at our burial will probably hear another minister say, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. There is no question about our end. The significant question is how we choose to live, knowing that it is inevitable that we will return to ashes and dust.
Dust! We know it well. It accumulates everywhere, in our homes and offices, on furniture and floors and bookshelves and counters. Most times we can take a rag and clean the surface. However, many of us are born into a dusty environment or find ourselves living in one. Consider the typical refugee camp and its inhabitants. We have seen many photos and may even have spent time in a hot and dusty place that is not our original home and not the home we long for. The dust seems to stay with us, long after we have moved on from it. It seems to pervade our bodies and our living spaces.
The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner describes dust. Dust – truly a splendid symbol. Dust, this is the image of the commonplace. There is always more than enough of it. One fleck is as good as the next. Dust is the image of anonymity. Dust is the symbol of coming to nothing. We are dust. We are always in the process of dying. We are the beings who set our course for death, when we set out on life’s journey. We are dust!
The Gospel reading we hear for Ash Wednesday has words from Jesus about how we practice piety – how we give alms, how we pray and how we fast. Jesus is inviting us to humility rather than parading before others our prayer and works, to be quiet, so quiet that even one hand doesn’t know or judge what the other is doing.
Lent offers us a new opportunity to look at how we live and possibly reorient ourselves. We look at our own unique relationship with God, but only by including the ways we relate to the other in our midst. My Lent is not merely about how I am with God; it’s also about how I am with the stranger that I have never met … the family living in a refugee camp in Syria. Perhaps it is helpful to place a photo of a dusty refugee camp in front of me throughout this season of Lent. Let it act as an icon, reminding all who gaze upon it to contemplate the stranger and marginalized in this penitential season. It helps me recognize that I cannot split my personal sin from the plight of the stranger. It helps me to place my life in context. My end is seen in that speck of dust. I can choose to make a difference in the world.
LISTEN
God of Silence
Holy Darkness, Blessed Night
REFLECT
What is God asking of me as I prepare for Lent?
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
PRAY
Let us remember in our prayers the members of Human Life Research and Development Centre (HLDRC), a CJI partner in India, whose main goal is to help tea plantation workers in North Bengal, India. Tea workers are often deprived of their rights and exploited by plantation managers as well as government agencies. Many HLDRC members are themselves tea workers, who give selflessly to their brothers and sisters, without regard for recognition. A project of the Jesuit Darjeeling Province, HLDRC addresses these injustices through programs that empower workers, especially those from Indigenous, tribal and caste groups. Empowerment allows them to actively participate in social, economic, and political decision-making processes, and to become self-reliant and to live with dignity.
Thanks so much, Philip…it was well worth the read…