Yesterday the world was busy in its pleasures and the very children of God were taking a joyous farewell to mirth, but today all is changed. The solemn announcement spoken of by the Prophet has been proclaimed in Sion — the solemn Fast of Lent, the season of expiation, the approach of the great anniversaries of our Redemption. Let us then rouse ourselves and prepare for the spiritual combat.
But in this battling of the spirit against the flesh we need good armour. Our holy Mother the Church knows how much we need it and therefore does she summon us to enter into the House of God that she may arm us for the holy contest. What this armour is we know from Saint Paul who thus describes it: “Have your loins girt about with Truth, and having on the Breast-plate of Justice. And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. In all things, taking the Shield of Faith. Take unto you the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians vi. 14-17).
The very Prince of the Apostles, too, addresses these solemn words to us: “Christ having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought” (1 Peter iv. 1).
We are entering today on a long campaign of the warfare spoken of by the Apostles — forty days of battle — forty days of penance. We will not turn cowards if our souls can but be impressed with the conviction that the battle and the penance must be gone through. Let us listen to the eloquence of the solemn rite which opens our Lent. Let us go where our Mother leads us — that is, to the scene of The Fall.
The enemies we have to fight with are of two kinds — internal and external — the first are our Passions; the second are the Devils. Both were brought on us by Pride, and man’s Pride began when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him his sin, but He punished him. The punishment was death, and this was the form of the Divine Sentence: “You are dust, and into dust you will return” (Genesis iii. 19).
O that we had remembered this! The recollection of what we are and what we are to be would have checked that haughty rebellion which has so often led us to break the law of God. And if, for the time to come, we would persevere in loyalty to Him — we must humble ourselves, accept the sentence and look on this present life as a path to the grave. The path may be long or short — but to the tomb it must lead us. Remembering this we will see all things in their true light. We will love that God who has deigned to set His heart on us, notwithstanding our being creatures of death: we will hate, with deepest contrition, the insolence and ingratitude with which we have spent so many of our few days of life, that is, in sinning against our Heavenly Father: and we will be not only willing but eager to go through these days of penance which He so mercifully gives us for making reparation to His offended Justice.
This was the motive the Church had in enriching her Liturgy with the solemn Rite at which we are to assist today. When, upwards of a thousand years ago, she decreed the anticipation of the Lenten Fast by the last four days of Quinquagesima Week — she instituted this impressive ceremony of signing the forehead of her children with ashes, while saying to them those awful words with which God sentenced us to death: Remember, Man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return! But the making use of ashes as a symbol of humiliation and penance is of a much earlier date than the institution we allude to. We find frequent mention of it in the Old Testament. Job, though a Gentile, sprinkled his flesh with ashes, that, thus humbled, he might propitiate the divine mercy (Job xvi. 16), and this was two thousand years before the coming of our Saviour. The Royal Prophet tells us of himself that he mingled ashes with his bread because of the divine anger and indignation (Psalms ci. 10). Many such examples are to be met with in the Sacred Scriptures; but so obvious is the analogy between the sinner, who thus signifies his grief, and the object, by which he signifies it, that we read such instances without the attention of surprise. When fallen man would humble himself before the Divine Justice which has sentenced his body to turn again into dust — how could he more aptly express his contrite acceptance of the sentence than by sprinkling himself, or his food, with ashes, which is the dust of wood consumed by fire? This earnest acknowledgement of his being himself but dust and ashes, is an act of humility, and humility ever gives him confidence in that God who resists the proud and pardons the humble.
It is probable that when this ceremony of the Wednesday in Quinquagesima Week was first instituted, it was not intended for all the Faithful, but only for such as had committed any of those crimes for which the Church inflicted a public penance; and these alone received the ashes. Before the Mass of the day began, they presented themselves at the church where the people were all assembled. The priests received the confession of their sins and then clothed them in sackcloth and sprinkled ashes on their heads. After this ceremony the clergy and the faithful prostrated and recited aloud the Seven Penitential Psalms. A procession in which the Penitents walked bare-footed then followed; and on its return, the bishop addressed these words to the Penitents: “Behold, we drive you from the doors of the Church, by reason of your sins and crimes, as Adam, the first man, was driven out of Paradise because of his transgression.” The clergy then sang several Responsories taken from the Book of Genesis and in which mention was made of the sentence pronounced by God when He condemned man to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, for that the earth was cursed on account of sin. The doors were then shut, and the penitents were not to pass the threshold until Maundy Thursday, when they were to come and receive absolution.
Dating from the eleventh century, the discipline of Public Penance began to fall into disuse, and the holy rite of putting ashes on the heads of all the faithful indiscriminately became so general that, at length, it was considered as forming an essential part of the Roman Liturgy. Formerly it was the practice to approach bare-footed to receive this solemn memento of our nothingness, and we find, that even so early as the twelfth century, the Pope himself, when passing from the Church of Saint Anastasia to that of Saint Sabina, at which the Station was held, went the whole distance bare-footed, as also did the cardinals who accompanied him. The Church no longer requires this exterior penance but she is as anxious as ever that the holy ceremony at which we are to assist should produce in us the sentiments she intended to convey by it when she first instituted it.Lesson – Joel ii. 12‒19
Thus said the Lord, “Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for He is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. Who knows but He will return, and forgive, and leave a blessing behind Him, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God.” Blow the trumpet in Sion: sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather together the people, sanctify the Church; assemble the ancients; gather together the little ones; and them that suck at the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride-chamber. Between the porch and the altar the priests, the Lord's ministers, will weep; and will say, Spare, O Lord, spare your people; and give not your inheritance to reproach, that the heathens should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations, Where is their God? The Lord has been zealous for his land, and has spared his people. And the Lord answered, and said to his people, “Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you will be filled with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations,” said the Lord Almighty.Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
We learn from this magnificent passage of the Prophet Joel how acceptable to God is the expiation of fasting. When the penitent sinner inflicts corporal penance on himself, God’s justice is appeased. We have a proof of it in the Ninivites. If the Almighty pardoned an infidel city, as Niniveh was, solely because its inhabitants sought for mercy under the garb of penance, what will He not do in favour of His own people who offer Him the twofold sacrifice, exterior works of mortification and true contrition of heart? Let us then courageously enter on the path of penance. We are living in an age when, through want of faith and of fear of God, those practices which are as ancient as Christianity itself, and on which we might almost say it was founded, are falling into disuse: it behoves us to be on our guard lest we too should imbibe the false principles which have so fearfully weakened the Christian spirit. Let us never forget our own personal debt to the Divine Justice which will remit neither our sins nor the punishment due to them, except inasmuch as we are ready to make satisfaction. We have just been told that these bodies which we are so inclined to pamper, are but dust; and as to our souls, which we are so often tempted to sacrifice by indulging the flesh, they have claims on the body, claims of both restitution and obedience.Gospel – Matthew vi. 16‒21
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “When you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face; that you appear not to men to fast, but to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also.”Praise be to you, O Christ.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Our Redeemer would not have us receive the announcement of the Great Fast as one of sadness and melancholy. The Christian who understands what a dangerous thing it is to be in arrears with Divine Justice welcomes the Season of Lent with joy; it consoles him. He knows that if he be faithful in observing what the Church prescribes his debt will be less heavy on him. These penances, these satisfactions (which the indulgence of the Church has rendered so easy), being offered to God united with those of our Saviour Himself, and being rendered fruitful by that holy fellowship which blends into one common propitiatory sacrifice the good works of all the members of the Church Militant — will purify our souls and make them worthy to partake in the grand Easter joy. Let us not then be sad because we are to fast. Let us be sad only because we have sinned and made fasting a necessity. In this same Gospel our Redeemer gives us a second counsel which the Church will often bring before us during the whole course of Lent: it is that of joining alms-deeds with our fasting. He bids us to lay up treasures in Heaven. For this, we need intercessors. Let us seek them among the poor.
*****
ALMIGHTY GOD, whose mercies are infinite, we implore your pardon and entreat you humbly to shed the grace of your blessing on the penitential exercises which we, with all the faithful, practice at this holy season of Lent, and while we chasten and mortify our bodies, shed on our souls the joy of a good conscience, and of a sincere and holy devotion, so that subduing all earthly desires and irregular appetites which attack the purity of our hearts and the innocence of our souls, we may the more easily apply ourselves to heavenly things. We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
