B Cycle – Ash Wednesday 24

Mt. 6:1-6,16-18

There is no doubt that most of us are what I would call “doers.”  We are more comfortable with our faith when we are doing something. Something does not have to be constant motion for even in adoration we are active.  We may read a meditation and reflect on what we read.   Or as we silently sit before Christ, we may in silent prayer, saying a rosary or reading scripture.  The truth is we are typically active and rarely do we take time to listen.  As we complete whatever our prayer practice is God is calling us to come back because He has “something to say to us.” 

Will the next forty days be anything different than the past forty days?  Are we going to add something to our daily practice to enhance our relationship with God?  Your parish like ours may be offering several things to help you connect with God but how many people will take advantage of them. Our intentions may be to become more diligent and more engaged, but our spiritual habits have not created habits that support those intentions.  We are not particularly good at seeking an encounter with God because we are too focused on doing something for God.

I cannot help but think of the disciples, who on the night before Jesus’s arrest were invited to join Jesus in the garden to pray (Mt.26:40).   Peter, James, and John were with Jesus as He struggled with what He knew was coming.  The invitation was to pray with Him, but instead of praying with Jesus they all fell asleep.  How easy it is for us to sleepwalk through our prayers, through the mass, through our meditations. Our minds quickly and easily shut down or go somewhere else.  Remember what Jesus said to them when He found them asleep?  “Could you not keep watch with me for one hour?”  That is us my brothers and sisters, we so often lose the one thing we need to pray, and that one thing is for us to be engaged, body, mind, and spirit. 

 But Jesus said something else to them that is critical for us to grasp in our own spiritual quest this Lent.  He said, “…keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt.26:41).  There is a cost to allowing our weakness for “doing” to overcome our desire to have a more fruitful encounter with the Father.  We may not be physically fall asleep while we attempt to have a more fruitful, prayerful lent. But we can quickly and easily shut down our minds and not even connect with God much less remember what we did during our hour with God.

How can we do something different from all we have done in the past?  We can invite the Holy Spirit to guide us to a more fruitful time with Jesus.  Just as it did when Jesus spent his forty days in the desert.  We can ask the Holy Spirit to help us listen and recognize the voice of God and guide us to a deeper encounter with God.  We can invite the Spirit into our prayer and ask that Spirit to open our ears to hear and our eyes to see and our hearts to respond. 

We can seek God in something we do every day and make our daily activity a time of encountering God in the ordinary.  We can read the Scriptures where God reveals Himself to us and teaches us how to respond to what we hear.  We can shake off the tendency to be active in a sacrifice and learn to listen and wait for Christ to speak to our hearts. Or if you are sacrificing make it a constant offering asking God to accept your sacrifice and fill you with His presence.  

What ever we do let us do it with joy and a great expectation of developing a new relationship with Jesus. One that last way beyond Lent and one that leads us into a mindset that mirrors Jesus himself.  An understanding of what it means to be a Son or Daughter of God, doing His will and hearing His voice daily. 

The ashes are a reminder of more than what we will become one day. They are a reminder of how easily we can acknowledge our sin and yet just as easily wipe away the stain they were on us.  They are a temporary reminder of how easily we will slip away and become what we have been for the past forty days. 

Come back to me with all your heart is the invitation God gives us every day.  Let us make this Lent one where we literally give God our hearts.