Pastoral Letter
PASTORAL LETTER FOR SUNDAY 19 FEBRUARY
“ASH WEDNESDAY AND LENT 2012”
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and abstinence. It is the day which marks the beginning of the sacred season of Lent. The English word “Lent” originates with the “lengthening” of the days which we enjoy during springtime. Light brings life, and the signs of new life are all around us, not least with the bursting growth of flowers and plants in our gardens and parks. In other countries, Lent is called “Quadragesimo” or “The Forty Days” during which Christian people prepare for the Easter celebration of the central mystery of our faith – the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Forty is an important number in the Bible. The People of Israel wandered in the desert for forty years in search of the Promised Land once they had escaped from slavery in Egypt. The story of Noah tells of the forty days of destruction and purification and new life brought about by the great flood. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus was led out into the desert for forty days and forty nights and faced temptation as he discerned the cost of His Messiahship.
As followers of Jesus, we walk in the path that he has already trod. We believe that his confrontation with evil, with sin, with suffering and death gives us the faith and life giving power to do the same. Our Lenten journey takes us to the desert places in our own lives – the dryness, the cynicism, the deadness, the pride, which are the causes of sin. “O that today you would listen to His voice. Harden not your hearts”. The Lenten ashes which we place on our foreheads this Wednesday are meant to be an outward sign of our inner conversion, our recognition that we need forgiveness, we need to change, we need conversion.
Prayer, penance, fasting, abstinence and works of charity are the tools we use to call us back to what is good and right and true. “Repent, and believe in the gospel”. Each parish will no doubt provide additional opportunities for prayer during Lent. The Station Masses, Stations of the Cross, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. These are public ways of turning back to the Lord during this season. Lent invites us to pray in public and in private with a new heart. Depriving ourselves of food, drink, entertainment, self indulgence are all signs of an inner desire to curtail our pride, gossip, criticism, and negativity towards others. Fasting and abstinence remind us of the need to discipline our bodies as well as our spirit. No wonder we speak of “Lenten exercises”; caring for the poor, making a sacrificial offering to a charity or a church, depriving ourselves of some money for which we have worked hard and which we deserve. Almsgiving is another expression of gratitude for the sacrificial love which caused Jesus to give His life for me.
Is Ash Wednesday an outdated ritual? Is the season of Lent an exercise in collective masochism? Or are these forty days an opportunity for us to look deep into our hearts to see if our journey of life is taking us to the heart of the mystery of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The ashes remind us that every one of us will come face to face with the mystery of our own life and death and the inevitable burden of suffering, pain, disappointment and sadness which is also part of the human condition. “Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return”.
In describing her vision of Christ crucified, the 14th century English mystic Julian of Norwich heard Jesus say:
“What more could I have done for you? If I could have done more, I would have done more”.
When we come to kiss the wood of the cross on Good Friday we proclaim that in his death Jesus has conquered death and overcome everything that would separate us from God. Our Lenten journey invites us to make that truth our own at this time, in this year, in these circumstances of our lives.
With every blessing for a holy Lent and a Happy Easter.
Yours devotedly
+George Stack
Archbishop of Cardiff
