Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.
Our world is full of so many great things. Many of us enjoy good food; we’re able to choose from Russian, Brazilian, and Thai cuisines. A plethora of clothes is available to us: how do I want to appear? Well, am I going to the pub, a movie, or party? What did I wear last time I went out? There are many things we consider before deciding how to dress. We also enjoy enormous time for a near-infinite number of possible recreations: shopping, cooking, fishing, travel, watching TV, surfing the net, hanging out with family and friends, reading, playing sports, writing, going to the gym, and camping, to name but a few.
We enjoy so many good things in our lives…and in the middle of the beauty of spring comes Ash Wednesday! We receive ashes and are reminded to fast and abstain from meat each Friday during Lent. Fast? Abstain? What – why? All these good things at my fingertips, and I’m urged to set them aside? Well, yes, you are. We set them aside not because they’re evil, but to clarify the eyes of our soul. These things easily overwhelm us with their abundance, leading us to center our lives around them. We fast and abstain to trim the fat, to be reminded that all things come from God.
We are also reminded that “our” world, “our” lives, all “our” things, and even ourselves are not really ours. They can be lost, destroyed, and each of us is irreversibly moving toward death. None of this should frighten or discourage Catholics: indeed, we should rejoice! We are free from the slavery of the world because we have a hope in everlasting life and unending happiness. We have been given true freedom, the liberty to choose the good. This is the Good News of Christ’s Gospel, this is what Lent reminds us about: we are not our own. We are children of the Father, and the growling of our hungry stomachs should remind us of the deeper hunger of our soul for the food that gives eternal nourishment, the Holy Eucharist. Our hunger should remind us that God is the giver of all things, and we must constantly re-orient ourselves to Him.
Turn away from sin, and believe in the Gospel.
By Brother Thomas More
