(Ash Wednesday 2022: This homily was given on March 2, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Joel 2: 12-18; Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 5: 20-6: 2; Matthew 6: 1-18.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Ash Wednesday 2022]
For several years when I was pastor, I would offer a “theme word” on Ash
Wednesday—a theme word to guide people on their journey through the season of
Lent. I’ll do that again this year. This word was actually suggested
by a parishioner. He gave it to me a
couple of months ago. And the more I
pondered it, the more I realized that it really is a good theme word for this
season. The word is “Light”. Lent is a time to let the light—the Light of
Christ—more fully into our lives. And
one of the effects of doing this; one of the effects of letting the Light of the
Lord come more fully into our lives (believe it or not) is to make us more
aware of our sins—our imperfections—our bad habits—our bad attitudes.
And that’s good! It may not sound good, but it is! It’s good because becoming aware of those
sins and imperfections and bad habits and attitudes is the first step to getting
rid of them. I don’t think that many Catholics
understand that becoming aware of your sins is actually a sign that you’re
drawing closer to Jesus—that you’re coming closer to the Light—that you’re
growing in holiness.
But it is a sign
of those things!
Bishop Sheen used
to use a great analogy to illustrate this truth. He used to say that if you take a portrait (a
painting) and look at it in dim light, with the light source far away from the
portrait, the painting will look pretty good.
All the colors will appear to blend well, the brush strokes will look
smooth. But if you take a very bright
light and bring it up close to that very same portrait, then you’ll see all the
imperfections—the places where the artist put a little too much paint, the
places where the colors didn’t blend perfectly, etc.
In the same way,
when we’re far away from Jesus Christ—the true Light of the world—we will look
pretty good to ourselves. Oh sure, we
will still be committing sins that hurt our families and friends and many others
(including ourselves) but we won’t be aware of those sins. So we’ll keep on committing them in all
likelihood. But if we’re growing closer
to the Light every day by nourishing our relationship with Jesus Christ through
prayer and fasting and almsgiving and the Eucharist and all those other
spiritual practices that we intensify during the season of Lent, we will notice
the imperfections within ourselves. We
will become more aware of the small sins as well as the big sins in our lives.
Which is great, as
I said earlier! Because becoming aware
of them is the first step to getting rid of them! It’s the first step to getting them out of
our lives. And the best place to get rid
of your sins, of course, is the confessional.
I said earlier that Lent is a time to let the Light of Christ more fully
into our lives. But the Light of Christ can’t
coexist with sin, because sin is darkness—spiritual darkness. This is why we’re encouraged to make a good
confession during the season of Lent: to get rid of whatever darkness is
present in our soul so that we can be more open to the Light.
This morning you
will receive ashes on your forehead, which should actually lead you,
eventually, into the confessional. If it
doesn’t, then I would say that you’ve missed the meaning of the sacramental
that you’ve received. When the person
giving you ashes makes the sign of the Cross on your forehead, he or she will
say, “Repent and believe in the gospel.”
Up until a few years ago they used to say, “Turn away from sin and be
faithful to the gospel”. We turn away
from sin most definitively and most completely when we make a good confession.
To turn away from
sin in confession is to reject the darkness.
To be faithful to the gospel is to love and obey the true Light of the
world.
It’s my prayer
that all of us will do both of those things during the next 40 days.
