MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: REMEMBER YOU ARE DUSTY

This last week there were a couple of priests visiting at St. Sebastian and we started talking about our techniques for distributing ashes.  You may think that it's just sticking your thumb in some burned palms and smearing them on a person's forehead - but for practiced ash distributors, there is a developed method.  From that night's discussion, this seems to be the most common:

Ashes, as it is well known, are made from the previous year's blessed palm branches.  Did you know you that a parish can buy these from a religious goods distributor instead of making their own?  I don't know WHAT they do to them, but like wine, the store bought brand is always better than the home made.  They stick better, have better consistency, last longer . . . How do they do it?  Homemade always seem to be just a little chunkier no matter what and you really have to grind them in to get them to stick!  (Sorry St. Sebastianites.)

So, as you well know, this day is a very solemn and dignified celebration requiring the utmost gravitas.  The dangerous mix of homemade ashes, an emotionally charged atmosphere and communal expectation makes occurrences that would otherwise not be humorous in the least outrageously hilarious.   Such as this:

I think after almost 20 years of doing this, I have FINALLY grown rather immune to this occurrence. But not all priests.  The way to determine if the person in front of you had a pile of ashes collect on their nose is to look into the face of a young priest and check for these signs:

PENANCE AND LOVE

This is year can be one of the most enthralling, memorable and love enhancing St. Valentine’s Day in 70 years.  That is the last time that St. Valentine and Ash Wednesday had to share the same day.  If we are smart, we will use it for all that it is worth.

SOME PEOPLE (certainly not you) will see this as a mighty inconvenience.  Decisions have to be made: Do I show traditional forms of love to the object of my affections OR do I show my respect to my faith and love of God by following the disciplines of the Church that He founded.  The answer is: neither!  It is a chance to shine in both arenas.

First a quick note:  One of the reasons that couples who do not live together or engage in sexual activity before marriage is that they are forced to find more creative and often very subtle ways of expressing to the other their deep love, respect, and admiration when sexual congress is not an option.  Once sexuality enters into a relationship, many of these more subtle yet foundational ways of expressing love gets left at home while its wilder twin parties every night.  

For most couples, there will be a time or period in there life when marital relations are not an option.  How do you express and understand both how to love and how to recognize and BE loved?  If you haven’t had practice at some point in your life at this, it can be difficult to trust and to start.

Well here is a day to find a new, creative, fun, challenging, unique way to show the person you love just how much you love him or her.  Step one: put away your credit card.  It is a day of fast and abstinence so no chocolate and no big fancy dinner.  Corporate America is going to be very disappointed in you.  So what can you do that is different on this day than all of the others that will make it clear to the person that you love that they are more special to you than could ever know?  What can you do besides just buying the traditional Valentine’s junk that will go on sale for half price the day after Valentines - being pushed aside as the bring the St. Patrick Day stuff out?  What will be cherished by the person you love AND show reverence for the faith that you practice AT THE VERY SAME TIME?  This is your day and your year to shine!

IS LENT AWFUL?

Each of us has a decision to make today and there are (basically) two choices.

Choice #1 - Lent is a terrible time of trial.  There are extra Masses, confessions, Stations of the Cross, focusing in my faults, giving things up, doing things I promised to do, extra praying, alms giving (ugh)  and so forth.  I am going to be miserable I can’t wait until just after midnight on Easter morning so I can chuck it all and start living again.

Choice #2 - Lent is AWESOME!  Through discipline and focus, I will become a better person spiritually, mentally, and physically.  I will become more like the person God created me to be.  It is like exercise or practice, defiantly not always fun, but the results are always worth it.  And the best part about it is, as I walk around today, I will notice that there are crazy amounts of my brothers and sisters with ashes on their foreheads that are doing the exact same thing.  We are one giant community of people setting out to improve themselves and this world.

So there you go. 

Choose.

GREMLINS IN YOUR CHURCH

Most likely last night there were some volunteers in your church.  They came in after the last service.  For St. Sebastian that would have been after 8:00PM Vespers and Benediction.  They carted away all of the plants in the church.  The altar clothes were removed and replaced with simple altar clothes.  The ones that were removed (for St. Sebastian this would be four of them; great swaths of material from the two altars in use and the two side altars) were taken to be laundered and then (God bless our volunteers) ironed and put into storage.  Extra candles and all other decorations were stored away.  (I believe in undecorating for Lent.)  For those parishes that believe in decorating for Lent, purple banners were put up, dead twigs and other various and sundry things brought out.   Green vestments are put away and all of the purples ones are put out and made handy.

 

Perhaps palms were burned to make ashes.  Fr P. called yesterday to say that he had burned his palms.  I asked if he were at the hospital.  They are then placed in containers so that they may be easily distributed today.  A table is probably set up with them and the holy water.

 

This was all done in order for you to have a Lenten experience when you showed up at Mass this morning.  Say a prayer for the gremlins that just make things happen.

HAPPY ASH WEDNESDAY

C. S. Lewis once wrote, “If you and I want to evade some dangerous duty, the best plan is to find one or two other cowards and do our shirking in company.” True enough. But the opposite is also true. If you and I have some difficult business to be about, the best plan is to find one or two other thusly burdened persons and do the task together. Such is the Lenten season upon which we embark today.

As you walk about and see a smudge mark on the forehead of your fellow Catholics, you know here is a person abstaining and fasting today also – who may be trying to pray more – who is cutting something they like out of their lives in sacrifice – is almsgiving – going through caffeine withdrawal – getting up early to exercise the temple of the Holy Spirit – who is improving, becoming more like the being God created us to be just like I will be striving to do.

Take comfort in that.

And remember, our observance is not meant to be a temporary fix up. Last year we should have advanced a bit in the spiritual life. Granted, it may have waned a bit, but some progress should have been made. This year we build on that! And next year we will build on what we did this year. It may seem like a season of hardships, but it is in fact a season of with great payoffs.

NO PAIN - NO GAIN - RO GAIN

So Father B and I were traveling about and needed to take a room somewhere in Pennsylvania. I went to work out in the hotel exercise room and when I returned B was watching a televangelist. I think a lot of these people preaching for such a long period of time week after week. It must be difficult. But five minutes into it we found ourselves saying, “Please say something of substance – please say something of substance.” It was like a long drawn out joke in which a person gives too many details before the punch line. Perhaps an hour sermon (for some – others are really quite good) say as much of substance as priests (are supposed to) do in an eight minute homily.

This particular man (and I would like to emphasize that I am talking about one preacher who was unassociated with a denomination) was going through great lengths to tell people that God wants them to be successful, rich, and happy. His prayer was that this is exactly where his congregation would find itself so that others would look at them and now that God is blessing them because of their wealth and happiness show that they must have truth.

Apparently the crucifixion was lost on him.

He is far from alone in the idea that if we are good enough, if we pray enough, if we are well practicing Christians then God will give us the high life. I would want to believe this! If I were a bit more naive and thought this message possible, I would gobble it up. Why not? What would I have to lose? Why not go with the guy who promises wealth and happiness from God?

Because it is a false promise.

There are not many non-Catholic Christians out there they see the merit in redemptive suffering. It is precisely when we suffer and remain true to God that we are refined like silver in the furnace, becoming more pure, more holy, even closer to God. Love of another human being is exactly the same. A couple that never has difficulties never truly grows in love for neither must sacrifice for the other. It is exactly when sacrifice is necessary, practiced and given freely that love, which is at first tried, becomes a deeper, more mature love.

Why do we purposefully practice acts of denial, charity, and penance in this season? Exactly to train ourselves to love and focus on God. This helps us prepare for those times when trial will hit us involuntarily. This will enable to trust God to see us through difficult times – to love Him just the same and not blame Him for our woes. It is redemptive because love will be tested and found then stronger than ever.

If you need proof, contemplate His Son’s Cross, or Job, or the Virgin Mary, or the violent life and death of those closest to Jesus such as the apostles, of Saint Paul, of the Martyrs, of the missionaries, of those who stand alone in their faith, of those persecuted for believing in Him – there is a reason they are now called saints – it was not because God made them wealthy and happy in an earthly sense – but wealthy in love and full of joy even when there were tears and trials.

I DARE YOU

Today is a day to be bold. It is a season to take risks. "He who dares magnificently can expect magnificent rewards." This is no time for half hearted responses to the call. The ashes on your forehead tell the complete tale of the fate of this world. They remind us if we are to have life it is only in God. Live this reality. Be daring. Do you believe the Church is becoming holier every moment? Do you beleieve that we still have a way to go? The next step is renewing the faith from within. The only thing that works to bring about the holiness of the Church is for men and women to grow in the holiness that He offers. And the holiness that He offers is radical, powerful, transforming, renewing, awesome, and terrible in its greatness and we need to meet it back with the same power.

That is what these ashes are about. That is what your Lenten practices are supposed to do for you. So be daring. Engage it. And don't settle for whining over not having pepperoni on you pizza! Be a sign to others as these ashes are a sign to you.