Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - “Ash Wednesday is considered the ‘gateway’ to Lent. In fact today’s Liturgy and its distinctive actions anticipate in a synthetic form the very physiognomy of the Lenten Season. In her tradition the Church offers us not only the liturgical and spiritual themes for our Lenten journey she also indicates ascetic and practical ways to live this time in a fruitful manner.” Pope Benedict XVI said this during his homily at Mass on Ash Wednesday 21 February at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill. The Liturgy, typical of the Lenten masses at Rome’s traditional ‘station’ churches started with prayers and a penitential procession from Sant’Anselmo, another church on the same hill, to the Basilica of Santa Sabina.
Reflecting on the first reading Joel (2,12), the Pope said: “Joel’s call - "Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping and laments " - regards us too, dear brothers and sisters. Let us not hesitate to restore our friendship with God, lost through sin; encountering the Lord we experience the joy of his forgiveness … Christ alone can transform any situation of sin into new grace. Hence the powerful spiritual impact of what St Paul says to Christians in Corinth: "in the name of Christ we appeal to you to be reconciled to God"; and again: "now is the real time of favour, now the day of salvation is here!" (5,20; 6,2). While Joel was speaking about the future day of the Lord as a day of terrible judgement, St Paul, referring to the prophet Isaiah, speaks of "time of favour", "day of salvation". The future day of the Lord is "today". The terrible day has been transformed, through Christ’s Cross and Resurrection, into the day of salvation. And this day is now as we heard in the chant before the Gospel: " Today do not harden your hearts, listen to the voice of the Lord". The call to conversion and penance resounds today with all its power so that its echo may accompany us all through life”.
The Holy Father then illustrated the rite of the imposition of the blessed Ashes and its “double significance: the first relative to a change of heart, conversion, penance, whereas secondly it reminds us of the precariousness of the human condition, as is easily seen from the two different formulas to accompany the action”. The means for achieving authentic individual and community renewal in the forty days of Lent are indicated by Jesus in the Gospel: “works of charity (almsgiving), prayer and penance (fasting). These are three fundamental practices, dear also the Jewish tradition, because they help purify the person before God. These exterior actions, performed to please God not to obtain human approval or consensus, are acceptable to Him if they express a determination of heart to serve him with simplicity and generosity”. Repeating a call expressed in his Message for Lent to live these forty days of special grace as a "Eucharistic" time, Pope Benedict XVI concluded: “Drawing from the inexhaustible source of love, the Eucharist, during which Christ makes present His redeeming sacrifice of the Cross, every Christian can persevere in the itinerary which we solemnly begin today. Works of charity (almsgiving), prayer and penance (fasting), and other sincere efforts for conversion find their highest significance and value in the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church and the history of salvation”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 22/2/2007 - righe 42, parole 606)
