A reflection by Fr. Dave Warren, SFM, on Joel 2.12-18, 2 Cor 5.20-6.2 and Matthew 6.1-6,16-18<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em> With these words in our ears and with ashes on our foreheads, we begin the season of Lent.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Who wants to be reminded that we are going to die? We know that life is short. If we don\u2019t know it yet, we\u2019ll find out soon enough that life is short. Who needs the reminder?<\/p>\n We all need the reminder. In the Old Testament, the Psalmist prays, \u201cTeach us, Lord, the shortness of our lives that we may gain wisdom of heart\u201d (Ps. 90.12).<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cRemember that you dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n These words are not a threat; they are an invitation to wisdom. They are an invitation to come home \u2013 to come home to ourselves, to come home to others, to come home to Mother Earth, and to come home to God.<\/p>\n We all admire down-to-earth people. They are who they are. They are free. Wouldn\u2019t you like to be free? Wouldn\u2019t you like to just be who you are? Wouldn\u2019t you like to be free of the pressure to be someone else? Wouldn\u2019t you like to discard all the unrealistic goals and all the social pretensions? Lent is an invitation to come to down-to-earth before we come down-to-earth at the hour of our death.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Death is the great leveler. Rich or poor, powerful or powerless, famous or unknown, we are all going to die. We\u2019re all in the same boat. We have all come from the same place and we all have the same destination. Lent is an invitation to make connection with our fellow passengers \u2013 and especially with our fellow passengers who have less than we have.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Rich or poor, we all belong to the earth. Poor old Mother Earth! We, her children, don\u2019t treat her very well. We pollute the land, the water, and the air. We deplete her finite resources. Let\u2019s give Mother Earth a break in Lent! Let\u2019s reduce, re-use, and re-cycle!<\/p>\n \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Dust is the place where God meets us. Lent is a time to come home to God. We read in the Bible that \u201cThe Lord God fashioned man from the dust of the earth. Then He breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being\u201d (Genesis 2: 7). <\/em>There it is! God doesn\u2019t meet us somewhere up in the air; God meets us here on the ground. God meets us and we meet God when \u2013 and only when \u2013 we are down-to-earth.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Scientists tell us that we are products of stardust and time. God has been working with stardust and time for millions of years to make of us who we are today. But God isn\u2019t finished with us yet! We are still very much a work-in-progress. Lent is a time to be dust again so that God can continue his creative work in us. During the season of Lent, we give God a little more time to work on us.<\/p>\n Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I\u2019ve been asking myself, \u201cWhat will I do for Lent?\u201d It\u2019s a good question. But it\u2019s not the most important question. The most important question is \u201cWhat does God want to do in us during Lent?\u201d In Lent, God wants to do what He is wants to do all the time: God wants to transform us. He wants to bring Christ to completion within us \u2013 within you, within me and within all of us together.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat will I do for Lent?\u201d It\u2019s not the most important question. All the same, it\u2019s a good question. The ashes give us the answer: \u201cCome back to earth! Come back to the place you never really left!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A reflection by Fr. Dave Warren, SFM, on Joel 2.12-18, 2 Cor 5.20-6.2 and Matthew 6.1-6,16-18 \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.\u201d With these words in our ears and with ashes on our foreheads, we begin the season of Lent. \u201cRemember that you are dust and unto dust you shall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":937,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarboromissions.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}