Print Blog
Email a FriendPosted by Sandi on Wednesday, Feb 22, 2012 6:02 PM (EDT):
Pope Benedict is indeed a wonderful teacher. He really knows how to explain our faith in a way everyone can understand. 
The Meaning of Ashes
the pope's homily for Ash Wednesday
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:00 AM
Benedict the XVI is a wonderful teacher and I love it when he preaches on the significance of the symbols of the liturgy.
He did that this morning in his homily for Ash Wednesday.
He starts with the basics: the significance of ashes for the people of Israel, and then their role in our liturgy.
The ashes are not a sacramental sign, but they are linked with prayer and the sanctification of the Christian people. Before the ashes are placed on our heads, they are blessed according to two possible formulae: in the first they are called “austere symbols”, in the second, we invoke a blessing directly upon them, referring to the text in the Book of Genesis which can also accompany the imposition of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return”.
Then he goes a little deeper by examining the Genesis text.
Dust is not at first negative, he says:
“God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then He breathed into his nostrils, a breath of life. Thus man became a live being….Thus the sign of the ashes recalls the great story of creation which tells us that being human means unifying matter with Divine breath, using the image of dust formed by God and given life by His breath, breathed into the nostrils of the new creature.
And:
Before the fall the soil is totally good: through God’s work it is capable of producing “every kind of tree enticing to look at and good to eat.”
To paraphrase a rude bumper sticker: sin happens. That changes everything.
...the symbol of dust takes on a negative connotation because of sin… After the fall and following the divine curse it produces only thorns and brambles and only in exchange for the sweat of man’s brow will it surrender its fruits. The dust of the Earth no longer recalls the creative hand of God, one that is open to life, but it becomes a sign of death: “Dust you are and unto dust you shall return.”
Citing St. John Chrysostom, the pope goes on to say that this cursing of the soil has a medicinal purpose. Adam and Eve had aspired to be “like God.” Now they are taught their limits and their human nature.
This “medicinal purpose” is not merely a just punishment. It’s also a sign of hope:
The curse does not come from God but from sin. God cannot avoid inflicting the curse because he respects human freedom and its consequences even when they are negative. Thus, within the punishment and within the curse, there is a good intention that comes from God. When He says, “Dust you are and unto dust you shall return”, He intends inflicting a just punishment, but also announcing the way to salvation. This will pass through the Earth, through that same dust, that same flesh which will be assumed by the Word Incarnate.
In other words, when we accept ashes, we are doing two things.
We express humility, acknowledging and confronting our limitations, our fallen nature and our mortality.
But we also associate ourselves with soil and flesh, and therefore with Christ, who takes these things on in order to redeem us.
He ends with these lovely lines:
the same God that exiled our first parents from Eden, sent His own Son to this Earth devastated by sin, without sparing Him, so that we, prodigal children, can return, penitent and redeemed through His mercy, to our true homeland. So it be for all of us, and for all believers, and for all those who humbly recognize their need to be saved.
Ash Wednesday is about penance and repentance, yes.
Mostly, though, it is about heaven.
(PS See also the Holy Father’s short Letter for Lent 2012, which is about what love of neighbor entails.)
Comments
Page 1 of 1 pages
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
