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Ash Wednesday Q and A: What You Need to Know

 

Ash Wednesday 1Q. The season of Lent begins today, Ash Wednesday. Is Ash Wednesday a holy day of obligation? In other words, am I required as a Catholic to attend Mass on Ash Wednesday?

A. No. Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation. In Canada, the holy days of obligation are as follows: every Sunday (which obviously includes Easter Sunday), Christmas Day, and January 1 (which is the feast of Mary, Mother of God). It is a mortal (grave) sin to miss Mass on those days, and if one has missed Mass on a holy day of obligation (unless it was for a very serious reason), one must go to Confession before receiving the Eucharist again.

Having said this, holy days of obligation are really a “bare minimum” for Mass attendance. A Catholic who is serious about his or her relationship with Jesus Christ will naturally look for more opportunities to be with Christ in prayer. The greatest prayer of the Church is the Mass, and Jesus is present in the Eucharist in his true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in a way that he is not present elsewhere.

Going to Mass on Ash Wednesday is a very salutary practice, and it is a fitting way to begin Lent.

Q. Is Ash Wednesday a day of fasting and abstinence from meat?

A. Yes. All Catholics aged 18-59 must participate on a day of fasting, which consists of the following: one may eat one regular-sized meal and two snacks which, when put together, do not equal or surpass the size of the one regular meal. Fluids, like water and other beverages, do not count against the fast.

If one has a medical condition that requires more food be eaten (for example, medicine that must regularly be taken with food), or if one is diabetic, pregnant or a nursing mother, or is a soldier on active duty (there are other situations that could qualify), one can be exempted from the fast by one’s pastor.

All Catholics aged 14 and up are required to abstain from eating meat on a day of abstinence. Fish, fruits and vegetables are fine.

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence. Every Friday in Lent is a day of abstinence in the United States, while in Canada, it’s every Friday of the year, which is the universal norm in the Church.

Q. Does one have to be Catholic to receive ashes on one’s forehead on Ash Wednesday?

A. No. In fact, it is a common occurrence to see many people of other faiths – or no faith at all – walk into a Catholic Church to receive the ashes. This is especially so at our great Cathedrals in major cities. There is something about this ritual that draws many people in. The biblical quote from Genesis 3 that is spoken to the recipient (“Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return”) reminds us that we are creatures, not gods. We will die, be buried (return to the dust), and give an account of our lives to an unbiased judge – Almighty God. The common experience of human sin and mortality is, I believe what draws so many non-Catholics to Ash Wednesday.

The second part of what is said to each recipient of ashes is the Good News: “Repent and believe in the Gospel”. For each one of us who turns away from sin, trusts in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, and attempts with God’s help to change one’s life, there is new hope. In the Bible, “believe” does not mean to simply give mental assent to a fact; it means “become obedient to” the Gospel. Changing our life to become more like Jesus Christ is a big part of what Lent is all about.

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Q and A: Third Sunday of Lent

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Q. Today’s readings have a common theme: the absolute need to repent of sin, but also God’s abundant mercy for those who do. Would you agree?

A. That’s true. Psalm 103, the Responsorial Psalm from today’s readings, reminds us that “The Lord is kind and merciful”. One of the greatest mercies God provides for us is to “tell it like it is” – to explain reality to us, and warn us of the consequences of not repenting.

This is why St. Paul, in the second reading from 1 Corinthians 10, speaks about members of the Old Testament people of God who did not make it from Egypt to the promised land of Israel. Tragically, these people were “struck down” in the desert because they were not pleasing to the Lord. This was despite the fact that “all of them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ.”

Q. How does this apply to Catholics today?

A. The same dangers and consequences of unrepentance face the modern-day people of God. Like the Israelites of the Exodus generation, Catholics can sometimes view their baptism as a sort of “lifetime membership card” for Heaven. They frequent the communion lines, but not the queue for the confessional. They “all eat the same spiritual food, and all drink the same spiritual drink – the Christ” in the Eucharist. But they run the same risk that the Israelites did – of being “struck down” in the journey through the wilderness of this life, and not making it to the true promised land of Heaven. The reason is that they feel no need to repent of their sin. Just being “Catholic in name only”, they feel, will be enough to get them “in”. But God is not mocked.

Q. How can we avoid this trap?

A. By sincere repentance, and producing the fruit of the Kingdom in their lives. God will always forgive the one who truly is sorry for their sin, and who desires to change. This is why Jesus reminds us that “God is no respecter of persons”. This means that he judges everyone by the same, objective standard. As Jesus said in today’s Gospel, speaking of people who had died tragically in his time, “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did”.

Jesus then tells a parable about a fruitless fig tree. The owner wants to cut it down, but the “gardener”, who represents Christ, pleads with him to give him more time to “fertilize” it. After one more year, if the tree is still fruitless, the owner can cut it down.

We are like those trees. Christ has given us all the “fertilizer” we need to grow and bear fruit that will last. The scriptures, the sacraments, the teaching of the Church, the community of faith – all the conditions necessary for growth. We never know how much time we have left before we face eternity. Let us not waste this Lent. Who knows? It may be the last one we ever have. Let us truly repent and produce the fruit of the Kingdom in our lives, that we may share in the joy of the resurrection harvest.

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Pope Francis’ Message for Lent 2016

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Q. Today, Pope Francis released his message for Lent for 2016. It seems hard to believe, but Lent is just around the corner! Ash Wednesday is February 10, and Easter Sunday is on March 27.

A. Yes, this year, Lent is relatively early. It feels as if we’ve just caught our breath after celebrating Christmas, but here we go again! It’s important for us to start thinking about how we can get the most out of Lent, making it a spiritually fruitful time. And Pope Francis is eager to help us do that – hence, his letter.

Q. What are some of the highlights? Is there anything in particular that jumped out at you?

A. As with all of Pope Francis’ writing, there is a lot of spiritual food for thought, served up with many arresting images and scriptural references. I really encourage everyone to read it for themselves. What really grabbed me upon first reading it was the quote from the Gospel of Matthew that prefaces the letter: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13). In Lent, we traditionally think of making sacrifices – for example, fasting and abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. We also think of good things that we “give up” for Lent for a greater, spiritual purpose, like chocolate or dessert.

But Pope Francis, in this jubilee Year of Mercy, wants us to focus not simply on what we give up, but what we can do this Lent – we can practice the works of mercy, helping others experience the love and forgiveness of God.

Q. How does Pope Francis suggest we go about this?

A. The Holy Father calls us to rediscover what the Church has traditionally called “the corporal and spiritual works of mercy”. Here’s how he puts it in the letter: “These works remind us that faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting, comforting and instructing them. On such things will we be judged.”

Pope Francis also reminds us that these “corporal and spiritual works of mercy can never be separated”, and we must practice both if we are to avoid Hell and attain Heaven, which is God’s desire for us:

“In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need. By taking this path, the “proud”, the “powerful” and the “wealthy” spoken of in the Magnificat can also be embraced and undeservedly loved by the crucified Lord who died and rose for them. This love alone is the answer to that yearning for infinite happiness and love that we think we can satisfy with the idols of knowledge, power and riches. Yet the danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is Hell. The pointed words of Abraham apply to them and to all of us: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Lk 16:29). Such attentive listening will best prepare us to celebrate the final victory over sin and death of the Bridegroom, now risen, who desires to purify his Betrothed in expectation of his coming.

Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable a time for conversion!”

What do you think? Share your answer in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

The official English translation of the entire letter is below:

MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS
LENT 2016
“I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13).
The works of mercy on the road of the Jubilee

1. Mary, the image of a Church which evangelizes because she is evangelized

In the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, I asked that “the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, 17). By calling for an attentive listening to the word of God and encouraging the initiative “24 Hours for the Lord”, I sought to stress the primacy of prayerful listening to God’s word, especially his prophetic word. The mercy of God is a proclamation made to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience at first hand. For this reason, during the season of Lent I will send out Missionaries of Mercy as a concrete sign to everyone of God’s closeness and forgiveness.

After receiving the Good News told to her by the Archangel Gabriel, Mary, in her Magnificat, prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her. The Virgin of Nazareth, betrothed to Joseph, thus becomes the perfect icon of the Church which evangelizes, for she was, and continues to be, evangelized by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful. In the prophetic tradition, mercy is strictly related – even on the etymological level – to the maternal womb (rahamim) and to a generous, faithful and compassionate goodness (hesed) shown within marriage and family relationships.

2. God’s covenant with humanity: a history of mercy

The mystery of divine mercy is revealed in the history of the covenant between God and his people Israel. God shows himself ever rich in mercy, ever ready to treat his people with deep tenderness and compassion, especially at those tragic moments when infidelity ruptures the bond of the covenant, which then needs to be ratified more firmly in justice and truth. Here is a true love story, in which God plays the role of the betrayed father and husband, while Israel plays the unfaithful child and bride. These domestic images – as in the case of Hosea (cf. Hos 1-2) – show to what extent God wishes to bind himself to his people.

This love story culminates in the incarnation of God’s Son. In Christ, the Father pours forth his boundless mercy even to making him “mercy incarnate” (Misericordiae Vultus, 8). As a man, Jesus of Nazareth is a true son of Israel; he embodies that perfect hearing required of every Jew by the Shema, which today too is the heart of God’s covenant with Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt 6:4-5). As the Son of God, he is the Bridegroom who does everything to win over the love of his bride, to whom he is bound by an unconditional love which becomes visible in the eternal wedding feast.

This is the very heart of the apostolic kerygma, in which divine mercy holds a central and fundamental place. It is “the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead” (Evangelii Gaudium, 36), that first proclamation which “we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another throughout the process of catechesis, at every level and moment” (ibid., 164). Mercy “expresses God’s way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to look at himself, convert, and believe” (Misericordiae Vultus, 21), thus restoring his relationship with him. In Jesus crucified, God shows his desire to draw near to sinners, however far they may have strayed from him. In this way he hopes to soften the hardened heart of his Bride.

3. The works of mercy

God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn. In an ever new miracle, divine mercy shines forth in our lives, inspiring each of us to love our neighbour and to devote ourselves to what the Church’s tradition calls the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. These works remind us that faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting, comforting and instructing them. On such things will we be judged. For this reason, I expressed my hope that “the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy; this will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty, and to enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy” (ibid., 15). For in the poor, the flesh of Christ “becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured, the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled… to be acknowledged, touched, and cared for by us” (ibid.). It is the unprecedented and scandalous mystery of the extension in time of the suffering of the Innocent Lamb, the burning bush of gratuitous love. Before this love, we can, like Moses, take off our sandals (cf. Ex 3:5), especially when the poor are our brothers or sisters in Christ who are suffering for their faith.

In the light of this love, which is strong as death (cf. Song 8:6), the real poor are revealed as those who refuse to see themselves as such. They consider themselves rich, but they are actually the poorest of the poor. This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars. The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and deception can grow. It can even reach the point of being blind to Lazarus begging at their doorstep (cf. Lk 16:20-21). Lazarus, the poor man, is a figure of Christ, who through the poor pleads for our conversion. As such, he represents the possibility of conversion which God offers us and which we may well fail to see. Such blindness is often accompanied by the proud illusion of our own omnipotence, which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical “you will be like God” (Gen 3:5) which is the root of all sin. This illusion can likewise take social and political forms, as shown by the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and, in our own day, by the ideologies of monopolizing thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to raw material to be exploited. This illusion can also be seen in the sinful structures linked to a model of false development based on the idolatry of money, which leads to lack of concern for the fate of the poor on the part of wealthier individuals and societies; they close their doors, refusing even to see the poor.

For all of us, then, the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy. In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need. By taking this path, the “proud”, the “powerful” and the “wealthy” spoken of in the Magnificat can also be embraced and undeservedly loved by the crucified Lord who died and rose for them. This love alone is the answer to that yearning for infinite happiness and love that we think we can satisfy with the idols of knowledge, power and riches. Yet the danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is Hell. The pointed words of Abraham apply to them and to all of us: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Lk 16:29). Such attentive listening will best prepare us to celebrate the final victory over sin and death of the Bridegroom, now risen, who desires to purify his Betrothed in expectation of his coming.

Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable a time for conversion! We ask this through the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary, who, encountering the greatness of God’s mercy freely bestowed upon her, was the first to acknowledge her lowliness (cf. Lk 1:48) and to call herself the Lord’s humble servant (cf. Lk 1:38).

From the Vatican, 4 October 2015
Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi
FRANCISCUS

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Sunday Scriptures: John 3:16

This Sunday’s Gospel (for the Fourth Sunday of Lent) is one of the most famous passages, if not the most famous passage, in the entire Bible. The passage in question, of course, is from Chapter Three of John’s Gospel. This section contains the single most memorable verse in Scripture for most people in the culture at large. This, of course, is John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life.

One reason this verse is so ubiquitous is that it’s often displayed on “bedsheet banners” at sporting events. It has been called “the Bible in a nutshell” and “the Gospel in a nutshell”. And this is Good News indeed: by Jesus’ Passion, death, and Resurrection, God has made it possible for us to obtain forgiveness of our sins and attain eternal life and friendship with God.

But one thing that many people don’t focus on is what comes after John 3:16. So many remember John 3:16, but so few think about John 3:18, which, we musn’t forget, is just as much God’s word as John 3:16 is. Here’s John 3:18:

Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

The “flipside” of the Good News is the Bad News: not everyone goes to heaven. In fact, the Good News of the Gospel wouldn’t be so good if that sad truth were not a reality.

And people, if they are thinking properly, absolutely cannot blame God for the fact that many are not saved. As a priest friend said in a homily last week, God had a choice: to either create a world with love, or a world without love. To love requires freedom. Freedom means that one can say “no”. No to God, and no to love. “The door to hell is locked from the inside”, wrote C.S. Lewis. In other words, people send themselves to hell by freely rejecting the salvation Christ offers.

This should cause us to redouble our efforts to not only do penance for family and friends who are far from the Lord this Lent, but to share the Good News with them, too!

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Pope Francis and the “globalization of indifference”

In the previous post, we talked about the Holy Father’s Message for Lent this year – specifically, the section aimed at local Catholic parishes. There was an intriguing phrase Pope Francis used in the letter, and it’s becoming one of the themes of his pontificate: namely, what he calls the “globalization of indifference”. This is one of the Pope’s great concerns on the global level, but what exactly does he mean by this? The problem, as he notes, begins with individuals. Let us carefully read his own words on this subject (again, from his Lenten Message):

Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for each community and every believer. Above all it is a “time of grace” (2 Cor 6:2). God does not ask of us anything that he himself has not first given us. “We love because he first has loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). He is not aloof from us. Each one of us has a place in his heart. He knows us by name, he cares for us and he seeks us out whenever we turn away from him. He is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be indifferent to what happens to us. Usually, when we are healthy and comfortable, we forget about others (something God the Father never does): we are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they endure…our heart grows cold. As long as I am relatively healthy and comfortable, I don’t think about those less well off. Today, this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference. It is a problem which we, as Christians, need to confront.

When the people of God are converted to his love, they find answers to the questions that history continually raises. One of the most urgent challenges which I would like to address in this Message is precisely the globalization of indifference. Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience. God is not indifferent to our world; he so loves it that he gave his Son for our salvation. In the Incarnation, in the earthly life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, the gate between God and man, between heaven and earth, opens once for all. The Church is like the hand holding open this gate, thanks to her proclamation of God’s word, her celebration of the sacraments and her witness of the faith which works through love (cf. Gal 5:6). But the world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him. Hence the hand, which is the Church, must never be surprised if it is rejected, crushed and wounded. God’s people, then, need this interior renewal, lest we become indifferent and withdraw into ourselves.

Pope Francis writes in a very clear, immediate style, so it is not at all difficult to understand his emphasis here. May we take his words to heart this Lent, and firmly reject the selfishness that makes us so indifferent to God and others. Let us allow God to renew us as we begin our joyful journey towards Easter!

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How Old Was Saint Joseph? Part I

The recent Solemnity of Saint Joseph on March 19 was a welcome feast within Lent – and we’ll have another one next week: the Annunciation. When contemplating Saint Joseph, one of the many interesting unanswered questions about him is this: How old was he? Was he an older man who served as a guardian to the Virgin, or was he younger and more robust? I’ll lay out the two competing views in the next couple of posts. First up: the view that he was older.

The Eastern wing of the Church has traditionally held that Saint Joseph was an older man, who betrothed and married Mary not for the purposes of romance, but protection – to be her legal guardian, as it were. The thinking here is that Mary had always planned on remaining a virgin dedicated to the service of God. Admittedly, this was a relatively rare position to take in Israel in the first century. But there are other examples, even in the same generation: Jesus himself (obviously), Saint Paul, and some of the Essenes, for starters. One could also add the prophetess Anna mentioned by Luke (2:36-38), who, although briefly married in her youth, lived out the rest of her days worshipping in the temple, consecrating herself to the Lord. She ostensibly could have sought remarriage, but didn’t. Mary may have been planning a similar life for herself.

But being an unmarried woman in the first century, especially if one was without extended family members to rely upon, may have been a precarious position to be in. Having a guardian, in the form of an older Saint Joseph, would have been a boon. Mary’s question to the archangel Gabriel, when told she would be the mother of the Messiah (“How can this be, since I am a virgin?” – Lk 1:34) is quite an odd question for an engaged woman to ask. Gabriel has said nothing at this point about the conception of Jesus being miraculous in nature – he does that a few verses later. Odd, that is – unless she was planning on remaining a virgin all along.

The concept of Joseph as an older man also carries explanatory power in other ways: most notably, it explains his absence from the adult ministry of Jesus. The presumption is that he had died by this point. Although the mother of Jesus is mentioned at key points in the ministry of the Lord, Joseph is nowhere to be found. This is felt most acutely at the crucifixion, where Jesus gives the care of his mother into the hands of – not Joseph, but the apostle John – inconceivable if Joseph had been living at the time (Jn 19:26-27). As well, in some strains of this tradition, Joseph is said to have been a widower, whose first wife had died some time before, when he married the Virgin. This may shed some light on who the alleged “brothers and sisters” of Jesus might have been. Certainly, they were not other children of Mary, but they may have been Joseph’s children from his previous marriage.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments box, but don’t forget to stay tuned for the other side of the argument, which I haven’t even presented yet – that Joseph was a much younger man. We’ll tackle that argument in the next post.

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