HOMILY
Ash Wednesday – March 5, 2025
In his message to the Church as we begin this holy season of Lent, Pope Francis reflected upon the great Jubilee Year of Hope in which we find ourselves. He remarked that the very challenges we all confront in life – even the personal tragedies that we experience and the brokenness of our lives due to sin – provide us with a context for hope. “Beyond the darkness,” the Holy Father notes, “we glimpse a light: we come to realize that we are sustained by the power flowing from Christ’s cross and resurrection. … The Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope that guides our steps towards the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.”
Lent provides us with one such moment in which we are invited to grow in our relationship with the Lord.
Today, in a ritual dating back to the days of the prophets and kings of Israel, we place ashes on our heads – a powerful reminder that dust is exactly what we are. Yet, there is also a certain sense of hope in these ashes.
Yes, the ashes placed on our heads remind us of our mortality and our need for repentance and change. Yet, the journey our spirits begin today ends not merely with the imposition of ashes. The scriptures on this Ash Wednesday speak of reconciliation and hope – grounded in a renewed relationship with Jesus.
In today’s gospel from his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his listeners to a deeper understanding of reconciliation and conversion through quiet, humble acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The prophet Joel in our first reading summons Israel to a season of repentance to transform individual hearts and reconcile their nation to the Lord of compassion and mercy. And in his letter to the Church at Corinth, Paul appeals for reconciliation among the members of the badly fractured Corinthian community and for a return to the one faith shared by the entire Church.
Pope Francis captures the heart of today’s scripture passages in these words which he shared in his Lenten message. “God is asking us to examine whether in our lives, in our families, in the places where we work and spend out time, we are capable of walking together with others, listening to them, resisting the temptation to become self-absorbed and to think only of our own needs. Let us ask ourselves in the presence of the Lord whether … we cooperate with others, whether we show ourselves welcoming, with concrete gestures, to those both near and far.”
The day – this moment of grace – is meant to transform the ashes of our lives – our brokenness, suffering and sin – into generous hearts open to the Lord and to the needs of our brothers and sisters through the forgiveness, mercy and justice of Christ.