Marked for death (Ash Wednesday 2010)

As an overly pious high school student, I made it a point each year to go to the morning Mass on Ash Wednesday, just so's I could sport the Catholicity smeared on my forehead all day long. To be sure, this was partly in response to a few not-so-subtle anti-Catholic teachers who said things back then that would surely bring down a lawsuit (if not the wrath of God) if uttered publicly in a classroom today.

Seeing my fellow Catholics so smeared was sobering. The priest had marked us all for death with the words, "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." It was bad enough coming to terms with my own mortality; I didn't want to think about theirs as well.

I don't much care for the diluted formula IMHO used by some of my priestly colleagues still trapped, it seems, in the 1970s: "Repent and believe the Good News."

Oh, it's a noble enough message. But it doesn't say Lent particularly, as we can and should repent and believe all year long. And it certainly avoids any suggestion of death.

Time was when people fixated on the "Last Things": Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell.

Nowadays forget the last three things, it's all we can do just to bring up the idea that we are not here on earth permanently.

But ashes on our forehead are a wake-up call, literally. Our fasting and abstaining from meat today, our abstinance every Friday, and our personal sacrifices during Lent are not to make our lives miserable but rather to help us cultivate detachment and mindfulness. Detachment from things; mindfulness of God, our neighbor and life.

Things are good when they enhance life. Attachments are wonderful when they enliven our spirits and strengthen our souls.

But, speaking from the "I", I can easily go through my daily routine like a mindless robot, eating whatever I want whenever I want and as much as I want without paying so much as a single thought to the taste and texture of the food, much less to the countless millions who at this very moment have no choice but to go without.

Listening to the news every waking moment, constantly posting on Facebook, surfing the internet every chance I get, all these things, while good in themselves, have an insideous way of numbing me to life.

Thus I welcome the yearly reminder that I and none of us are long for this world. Time is precious precisely because it is so temporary. Life on this earth is temporary.

So what am I going to do, not with the rest of my life, not with these 40 days, but with this wonderful gift of life and time I have right now?

Mindfulness of God and my life and the needs of those around me fill me more than the steak dinner and cafe latte I forego.

I give praise and thanks to God for the gift of death which so starkly highlights the beauty and miracle of life.