Reject the "Unimportant" Things
 
In Life, there is often a way when the ‘unimportant’ things sneak into our lives and take charge or centerstage, they attempt to ‘control’ our life. If one does not watch they can slowly cripple you. To learn to discern and reject ‘unimportant’ things could be the clarion call of Lent
 
For example, I have a relative in my family who I have watched struggle with alcohol (you could fill in the blanks with many other things…). Everything he has worked for, his family, his career, his goals in life have all been brought to a total halt. We have tried as a family to help but that ‘unimportant thing’ has dug deep.
 
Ash Wednesday is a very simple word for the beginning of the season of Lent. It is referred to as the ‘most important’ season/time in the life of a Christian.  Why?  Because it is a holy time of re-set, pause, self-evaluation, discernment, repentance and conservation. We take account of our lives and ask what ‘unimportant things’ have taken the lot of me? The true most important things being: ‘my relationship with God’. At the end of this season we say out loud with our hearts- "we need God and we cannot do without Him, He is life and light for the world!! Ash Wednesday and Lent are about ‘returning to God, with our whole heart’".
 
As we receive the Ashes on our forehead, the priest says ‘Remember you are dust and to dust we must return’. These are very raw and powerful words that force a real awakening of one’s conscience. (I know some priest choose to use more palatable words, but I rather stick to these. They remind me not to let the unimportant things 'control' my life)
 
In the readings, we listen to the Prophet Joel requiring his people to face their choices. He almost says your choices have consequences. The hard judgement you will receive is because you have persistently refused to ‘return to God’. Your judgment is ‘self-induced’. But even then, Yahweh is a merciful God, who does not hold us by our failures and wrongs. God sees what we can become more than what we were in the past. So ‘rend your hearts! In the heart true conversion begins. In the heart which is the ‘governing principle’ of one’s life, there God must be. ‘The garments’, the external things can often be ‘unimportant’.
 
The practices of Almsgiving, Prayer and Fasting are a staple of the season of Lent. In the ancient world of Jesus, they were the 3 essential duties of worship. But Jesus pushes the limits and nuances them. He says that what ‘motivates’ these 3 duties must be clear. In the culture of Jesus' time, when honor and being seen were viewed as the in-thing, the ‘unimportant’ aspects are being stressed.  Who must be the one ‘who sees’ you? Only the father who sees in secret. Beware of ‘pretenders’.(a temptation that can happen to all of us)
 

“Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
do not blow a trumpet before you,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

“When you pray,
do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
But when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

“When you fast,
do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”

 
Jesus' words are vintage! how they apply also for those who live in a world of appearances and externals. It is ‘what God sees’ that matters. The focus is God and our relationship with him.
 
The next 5 weeks will be hard to the ear! The reading will be relentless, speaking to our temptations, sins, wrongs. We will be forced to face our dark side. But they are needed to cure our lives. They are a sort of acupuncture, we need, to come, hopefully, to the conclusion that God is not a waste of time. He is everything and more. And he is merciful.
 
Ash Wednesday and Lent are a joyful season of hope and promise.


-Fr. Anthony