Ash Wednesday 2019

Today, on Ash Wednesday we come before the Lord, in repentance for our sins, asking forgiveness, and pleading for the Salvation of all. Yes, for the salvation of all, including our enemies; this is the Christian call. Jesus says in Scripture, the sun shines both on the good the wicked (Matt 5:45). Our task is that those embroiled in sin find mercy. And to find mercy we must first repent for we, too, the disciples of Jesus Christ are sinners as well. What is repentance? It begins with looking into ourselves, our hearts, in a journey, as many mystics have told us throughout the ages, to find God residing within us. God residing within us? The concept alone of God living within us is mindboggling, to say the least. How can God, the Divine Triune God—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—reside within us, mere mortals?

God living within us is perplexing to us and, unfortunately, for some unbelievable. It is perplexing to us because God’s residence in the human heart is rooted in His great generosity—a generosity the human heart cannot fathom. The Lord is Lord. God has come to us out of his great generosity—a generosity that first manifested itself in His Joyful Dance across the Cosmos, a Cosmos made out of Divine joy. Creation, as poetically described in Genesis, is God’s gift. And the Lord’s generosity knows no bounds. Yet, ever since Cain murdered his brother Abel, the human heart has a great propensity to kill. The human heart has the propensity to do great evil. Our own history is wrought with stories of murder, wars, greed, genocide. Tragically, it continues to this very day. When we can see children in cages, people convicted for leaving water in the desert, drones bombing in never-ending wars, we are witnessing the terror of sin, wrought out of the human heart.

Let us today, kneel before God, asking forgiveness for our own personal sins, and for the conversion of all, including those in power, to end wars, starvation, and the senseless destruction of the planet. We are one. We are Cain. We are dust. Every one of us, all of humanity, the animals, plants, all of the created—are dust—the ashes imposed upon us.