This Ash Wednesday will be different for me than all the others.
We just buried my father over the weekend and I’m absolutely crushed by grief and gutted by the loss. To say that I’m mourning his passing is an understatement, as anyone who has lost a beloved parent can attest. Someday, when doing so doesn’t leave me sobbing and breathless, I’ll write a fitting tribute to the great man who was a force of nature throughout my life — but not today.
Today, our faith calls us to put on the proverbial sackcloth and ashes to prepare for the Resurrection. Today I will begin to die to myself — and the timing couldn’t be more appropriate.
Dealing with a bodily death brings clarity to life, and all of the clichés about what matters most ring painfully true.
I begin this Lent as the walking-wounded, spiritually as well as emotionally this time around. I’ll struggle as I always do to cast off all selfishness, resentfulness, judgement, and all the rest, but it will have an urgency as never before.
My father used to say you don’t know if it’s been a good life until they close the lid on your coffin.
What is so profound about that statement is that it’s true, but also hopeful. Whatever flaws I’ve had up until this point are still forgivable, and whatever is distorted in my nature is still malleable as long as there’s life left within me.
I happily take on the visible sign of a sinner knowing that repentance is itself a gift that only the living can receive. It isn’t too late as long as I’m still on this planet, part of the Church Militant fighting the good fight against my fallen nature for my own salvation.
Of course that means giving up chocolate, but it also entails a painful and necessary cleansing of the worst of me – a lifelong pursuit that is renewed each year during Lent.
While the world tells us to do what feels good and enjoy this life because nothing comes next, I implore you to join me and take refuge in the Truth with an appreciation for what is left behind in death – only what we’ve shared and given away matter in the end.
It is a jarring realization, but a necessary one that good, traditional priests give as they mark your forehead with ashes: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Lord, I am only dust, but let my faith and good works, which do endure beyond my bodily existence, be my true measure of success.
