REFLECTIONS ON ASH WEDNESDAY BY DOM GUERANGER, LITURGICAL YEAR
Yesterday, the world was busy
in its pleasures, and the very children of God were taking a joyous farewell to
mirth: but this morning, all is changed. The solemn announcement, spoken of by
the prophet, has been proclaimed in Sion: the solemn fast of Lent, the season
of expiation, the approach of the great anniversaries of our Redemption. Let
us, then, rouse ourselves, and prepare for the spiritual combat.
But in this battling of the
spirit against the flesh we need good armor. Our holy mother the Church knows
how much we need it; and therefore does she summon us to enter into the house
of God, that she may arm us for the holy contest. What this armor is we know
from St. Paul, who thus describes it; 'Have your loins girt about with truth,
and having on the breastplate of justice. And your feet shod with the
preparation of the Gospel of peace. In all things, taking the shield and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The very prince of the apostles,
too, addresses these solemn words to us: 'Christ having suffered in the flesh,
be ye also armed with the same thought'. We are entering, today, upon a long
campaign of the warfare spoken of by the apostles: forty days of battle, forty
days of penance. We shall not turn cowards, if our souls can but be impressed
with the conviction that the battle and the penance must be gone through. Let
us listen to the eloquence of the solemn rite which opens our Lent. Let us go
whither our mother leads us, that is, to the scene of the fall.
The enemies we have to fight
with, are of two kinds: internal, and external. The first are our passions; the
second are the devils. Both were brought on us by pride, and man's pride began
when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him his sin, but He punished him.
The punishment was death, and this was the form of the divine sentence: 'Thou
art dust, and into dust thou shalt return'. Oh that we had remembered this! The
recollection of what we are and what we are to be, would have checked that
haughty rebellion, which has so often led us to break the law of God. And if,
for the time to come, we would preserve in loyalty to Him, we must humble
ourselves, accept the sentence, and look on this present life as a path to the
grave. The path may be long or short; but to the tomb it must lead us.
Remembering this, we shall see all things in their true light. We shall love
that God, who has deigned to set His heart on us notwithstanding our being
creatures of death: we shall hate, with deepest contrition, the insolence and
ingratitude, wherewith we have spent so many of our few days of life, that is,
in sinning against our heavenly Father: and we shall be not only willing, but
eager, to go through these days of penance, which He so mercifully gives us for
making reparation to His offended justice.
This was the motive the Church
had in enriching her liturgy with the solemn rite, at which we are to assist
this morning. When, upwards a thousand years ago, she decreed the anticipation
of the lenten fast by the last four days of Quinquagesima week, she instituted
this impressive ceremony of signing the forehead of her children with ashes,
while saying to them those awful words, wherewith God sentenced us to death:
'Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return!' But the
making use of ashes as a symbol of humiliation and penance, is of a much
earlier date than the institution to which we allude. We find frequent mention
of it in the Old Testament. Job, though a Gentile, sprinkled his flesh with
ashes, that, thus humbled, he might propitiate the divine mercy and this was
two thousand years before the coming of our Savior. The royal prophet tells us
of himself, that he mingled ashes with his bread, because of the divine anger
and indignation. Many such examples are to be met with in the sacred
Scriptures; but so obvious is the analogy between the sinner who thus signifies
his grief, and the object whereby he signifies it, that we read such instances
without surprise. When fallen man would humble himself before the divine
justice, which has sentenced his body to return to dust, how could he more
aptly express his contrite acceptance of the sentence, than by sprinkling
himself, or his food, with ashes, which is the dust of wood consumed by fire?
This earnest acknowledgment of his being himself but dust and ashes, is an act
of humility, and humility ever gives him confidence in that God, who resists
the proud and pardons the humble.
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