Remember, you are dust
and to dust you shall return.
With the sign of ashes on our foreheads we enter into
Lent. We are marked people, as Cain was, sinners nonetheless, trying to reform
our lives in the school of the Lord’s service.
For many years I did not realize that the ashes were
made by burning the palm from the previous year’s Palm Sunday—carefully braided
palm fronds, collected and burned by the sacristan. From hosanna to dust.
Repeat next year.
Thomas Merton wrote that “The Church uses material
things in the liturgy because they speak eloquently of God…we must learn to use
our senses…to appreciate the sacramental aids to holiness…” He continues, “The
material things which surround us are holy because of our bodies, which are
sanctified by our souls, which are sanctified by the presence of the indwelling
word.”*
The dust from which we come is given life, sanctified in baptism,
marked by ashes, brought to repentance and new life. Our earthly remains are
committed to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And out of that dust, in an unending cycle,
comes abundant and eternal life.
*The Monastic
Journey
Dear sister, thank you for this message for Ash Wednesday. Dust is the dry earth of the Holy Land. Help me to do penance by the tedious work of answering email communications to the monastery and convent, one by one, sharing information, and inviting those who have turned to us to visit us and be healed by our loving fellowship. Help me to send emails to places I would not have considered wise or profitable, in the loving hope that there will be someone out there who can be part of our love. There is a bitter dust falling in the corridors of beautiful houses, and noone to succeed to the task of keeping them happy and clean. God bless OSB Happy Easter amen
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