You are Dust and to Dust You Shall Return

Gospel Reflection for February 14th, 2024, Ash Wednesday

Courtesy of The Passion of the Christ

We hear these words as we receive the ashes on our foreheads today. They echo the words of Genesis 3:19 when God casts Adam and Eve out from the Garden of Eden for their sin. The return to dust is foretold by God as the wage for their sin. Before sin, man did not have to suffer death. We were given the preternatural gift of immortality and were meant to live forever. God warned Adam and Eve that if they sinned, if they ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would surely die.¹ Thus, the return to dust that all men must inevitably face, is a result of sin. The ashes that we receive on this day are a reminder of our mortality and the consequence of our sin.

Lent is a season of penance when we remember our sins and through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, return to the Lord as our first reading reminds us:

“Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.” Joel 2:12-13

The Lord desires to cover us in His mercy, but, importantly, mercy presupposes repentance. The mercy of God is available to all who repent. Lent is a season of repentance when we deny ourselves the desires of the flesh and sacrifice the good things that we enjoy helping us master our passions. God speaks through the Prophet Joel encouraging man to return to fasting and rending our hearts for love of Him. Fasting is a necessary component of Lent. We are called to fast both from some good that we enjoy and also from food, especially on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.²

The practice of fasting is an ancient sacrifice that is done to curb our fleshly desires. We sacrifice a good in food for the spiritual benefit that it gives. In particular, fasting helps us to fight the sins of the flesh, especially the sexual sins that plague our society. By fasting from food, we curb our desire to satisfy the longing of the flesh and we fight off sins like gluttony and lust. The moralists have always encouraged those who struggle with the sins of the flesh to regularly fast to help them overcome temptations toward impurity.

Fasting should remind us of our sins and how our flesh needs to be led by the spirit. It reminds us of our mortality and the need to care for the soul which will spend eternity either united to God or separated from Him.

In today’s Gospel, Our Lord affirms the three traditional works done in Lent, mentioned above: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. He begins in verse 2 with almsgiving:

“When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.” Matthew 6:2

Our Lord instructs the people to give alms for the sake of helping the poor and not in a way that brings us glory and praise. The orientation of the heart is important here and our intention needs to be to do the good and care for the less fortunate. This echoes what we hear in the Book of Tobit concerning almsgiving:

“For almsgiving delivers from death, and it will purge away every sin. Those who perform deeds of charity and of righteousness will have fulness of life; but those who commit sin are the enemies of their own lives.” Tobit 12:9-10 RSVCE

Here, St. Raphael exhorts his listeners to give to the poor authentically and it will save them from death, not a physical death, but the eternal death of hell.

Our Lord then moves on to prayer:

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.” Matthew 6:5

Again, Our Lord tells us that prayer ought not to be done in view of all for the sake of our own vanity. Instead, it is to be done with a heart and mind toward God and His majesty. Prayer is not for us to appear outwardly to be holy. Instead, the essence of prayer is to unite ourselves to God and to orient our wills to His.

Finally, Our Lord addresses fasting. He follows the same formula as with the previous two actions:

“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.” Matthew 6:16

In the same way, Our Lord addresses those who fast for the spectacle of it, in order to appear holy to others. They neglect their appearance so that they look hungry and so that people will look at them and assume how pious they are.

In all three of these instances, Our Lord condemns the outward appearance of these actions because the intention behind them is not repentance of sin, instead, it is outward manifestations of faux piety attempting to elicit praise and glory for themselves. As He says after each example, “They have received their reward.” These actions, when done for vanity’s sake, receive no merit in eternal life. They do nothing for our souls. Instead, they become a source of pride.

Our Lord reminds His followers that when we undertake prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we are to do so with a spirit of humility and repentance. When we wear our ashes on our forehead, let it not be as a spectacle of pride but as a reminder of our mortality, of our sinfulness, but most of all, of the redemption won by Christ on the cross which we look forward to at the end of our 40-day journey. As the ashes are placed in the form of the cross on our foreheads, we look to the cross and carry it with us throughout Lent.

Today’s Gospel is an exhortation to a clean heart, one in which prayer, fasting, and almsgiving can be undertaken for the love of God and the mastery of self. These actions, which the book of Tobit tells us, can save us from death, and remind us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. And so let our prayer today and this Lent be in the words of the Psalm for today:

“Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned. Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin, cleanse me. A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” Psalm 51

1. Cf. Gen. 2:17.

2. While the current Code of Canon Law only requires that we fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the church has encouraged the practice of fasting all year round. It is especially encouraged on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. This is in remembrance of the day our Lord was betrayed (Spy Wednesday) and the day He gave His life for us (Good Friday).