Sign of the + Cross Ash Wednesday
Day of Prayer & Fasting for Peace in Ukraine
Good Morning. Today's Mass is offered by Mary and Des Cunningham for the deliverance of Ukraine and the conversion of the heart of Vladimir Putin and his associates.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…. As we look out into our world, we see a lot of angry people, much yelling and running around. It’s a wonderful experience to be passionate about loving God and others, but it’s a terrible thing to be a slave of any of the human passions.
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Gospel & Homily - MP3 version Homily PDF version
HOMILY
We are part of this world. We cannot help but be sad these days, as we witness the Bear harassing the Lamb in Eastern Europe, but we know that when Jesus visits; the bear will lie down with the lamb. Jesus loves us and enables us, when there are enemies, for them to become friends.
Brothers and sisters, have you ever suffered from heartbreak? I hope so; our lives are not truly full until we have experienced something like that. Today, as we enter into Lent, the Lord is offering us precisely the grace of a broken heart. We’re not talking about a little selfish heart that is pained because it isn’t getting what it wants. No. We’re talking about a heart courageous enough to love others and to go out and care for others, and in this process of going out is rejected and wounded by the rejection. Jesus wept over ancient Jerusalem because He who is Love in Person offered Himself to his people, but they rejected Him, they rejected God’s Love. The suffering of Jesus is Love unable to give itself to those who are unwilling to receive.
You’ve heard the expression “It is better to have loved and lost; than not to have loved at all.” To enable us to love more fully, God is offering to break all the self-absorption and self-preoccupation which are part of the human condition unfortunately, but which form a hard crust over our hearts, preventing us from feeling sympathy with the sufferings of others, causing us to turn away and not look, not see, not hear; preventing us from reaching out with words, gestures, and actions of love, of compassion and caring. Lent is a great gift from God every year to his people and the Christian spiritual practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving have great value and effect, not only in those who practice them, but also for all those around them; to the degree that these practices come from our deepest heart, out of a genuine desire to leave selfishness behind, to love God by going out to love our neighbour and even our enemy; to be willing to be disturbed, to receive others with a hospitable heart.
How many of us truly listen to others? When we are seated at table, if there’s never a moment of silence, however joyful the meal and the company may seem to be, if there’s never a moment of silence, is there really listening or is it just an avalanche and a tumble of words falling over one another? It’s not just hearing them, but letting their words and all that is hidden behind those words to enter into us, to move us, to disturb us profoundly, and to let all those meanings become part of us and have a real effect on how we carry ourselves in the company of those people, how we look at others and how we behave towards others. A heart deeply listening to others will necessarily be broken so that love can come in and go out.
The mystery of our human existence, brothers and sisters, is that our heart, the human heart, has a set of gates, you know, big gates, one set of gates. Now, when we shut the gates against the possibility of being hurt, the gates are closed; no love can come in, no love can go out; no forgiveness can go out, no forgiveness can come in. There’s nothing more tragic than a human heart with the gates closed and shuttered.
So, Lent is an occasion for us to put our trust elsewhere than in ourselves, to put our trust in God. Have you noticed in the Scriptures today that there’s a lot about God listening to us; there’s a lot about God taking powerful action in the world, but whenever we ask the question “What is God doing? Why isn’t God doing something about it?” It’s often because we’re pushing God out of the way. We’re throwing ourselves into the heart of the action, trying to take over, trying to fix it, trying to resolve it, trying to impose our will on others, and God waits for us to be finished with all of this busyness because God cannot really bring about his reign, cannot really give life, cannot really bring peace until we are willing to stop and become willing to receive what it is that God wants to give.
“Father, may your Holy Spirit break open our hardened hearts so we can love like Jesus by accepting first to receive his love.” “O my Jesus, I trust in You. Mother Mary, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Lord have mercy on your children in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. We give praise to You, O God, the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
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