ASH WEDNESDAY, WHY?

I will forever have a taste for salmon croquettes. I will forever love the sight, but not taste of, nopalitos con huevo (egg with cactus). My mother was a Catholic until I was ten years old. She and my Dad married in a Catholic church with my Dad signing papers that they would raise their children Roman Catholic. And in a way they did. We were faithful followers of Lenten cuisine, though our roots were firmly Methodist. I have shared how every Ash Wednesday I would see some of my friends and classmates with what I thought were smudges of mud on their forehead and they would correct me when I tried to remove it from them. "The priest put it there!" Lent was not something we observed in my home church in Kingsville and something later introduced into a church where I attended as campus minister. The first Ash Wednesday service I attended the pastor very wisely asked the parishioners to be anointed with oil as our faithfulness to Matthew's passage.

Why even have an Ash Wednesday service or an observation of Lent? Because we are sinners. Just like Baptists don't own the word salvation, the Catholics do not own Lent. It is a forty day period of spiritual preparation for the coming Resurrection celebration of our Lord. Look at the words of the scriptures set aside for today: The psalmist knew of his sin and the need for a washing and blotting out of our transgressions, iniquities, and sins. We have sinned against God and others and we stand in need of forgiveness. Some of us keep our sins ever before ourselves in our minds sometimes to the point of a slowing down of our spiritual progress. This is a time to say to our sin, enough! You have been taken away by the only one who can, the Living God in whom I believe.

Paul puts it a bit more modernly, this is a time to be reconciled with God. There is nothing worse than being alienated from loved ones for whatever reason. Sometimes it takes us, even if we are not too blame, to say I'm sorry to the person from whom we are alienated. Our sin certainly alienates us from God. God was not to blame, we were. And we need to seek to be reconciled with God. This is a time to remember that Jesus, "who knew no sin," became sin, on our behalf, so that in Jesus we might become (listen to this!) "the righteousness of God."

Jesus said, this time of spiritual reflection and preparation is a private matter between you and God. It is a time of private, honest, confessional prayer. Share with God that which needs to be shared, confessing what needs to be confessed so that God can indeed wash, blot and remove our transgressions, iniquities, and our sins. And if we fast during these forty days, that is give up something as part of our "fast" then take up something spiritual in its place. Many give up sweets for these days, they should take up either prayer time or scripture reading when they would have been enjoying sweets. Instead of a dessert of pie, enjoy a psalm! Our fasting may be public today in showing a mark of ash on our forehead, but inwardly from now until Easter Sunday, it is a time to inwardly seek forgiveness and newness from God.

Why Lent? Because God deserves it and we need it.

PRAYER: Dear God, today is a special day. It marks the start of a spiritual journey for many using the 40 days that Your Son, Jesus, spent in the wilderness preparing for his ministry. Let us grow each day closer to You and being made right with ourselves and others. We need this time to glorify You and thank You for all You did through Jesus during this season of Lent, the time of Passion and crucifixion and resurrection. Let me be ready to share with others, and let me be ready to join in with the celebration that is Your victory over sin and death. I pray this in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.

Make this day special, for you are special to God.

Eradio Valverde

SCRIPTURES: Psalm 51:1-7 (NRSV): 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

2 Corinthians 5:20b-21 (NRSV): we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Matthew 6:5-6; (NRSV): 5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Thought for the Day May this first step of 40 days be a big one in my spiritual life!