Instruction on Ash Wednesday

Continued:
Instructions on Ash Wednesday
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year, 36th edition, 1880



In the Introit of this day's Mass the Church uses the following words to make known her zeal for penance, and to move God to mercy: Thou hast mercy upon all, O Lord, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made, winking at the sins of men for the sake of repentance, and sparing them; for thou art the Lord our God. (Wisd.'&.i. 24.25.) Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me; for my soul trusteth in thee. (Ps. 1-vi. 2.) Glory be to the Father, &c.

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH: Grant to thy faithful, O Lord, that they may begin the venerable solemnities of fasting with suitable piety, and perform them with tranquil devotion. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, etc.

EPISTLE (Joel ii. 1219.; Thus saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. Who knoweth but he will return, and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Sion: sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather together the people; sanc- tify the Church; assemble the ancients; gather together the little ones, and them that suck at the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride-chamber. Between the porch and the altar the priests, the Lord's ministers, shall weep; and shall say: Spare, O Lord, spare thy people; and give not thine inheritance to reproach, that the heathens should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations: Where is their God? The Lord hath been zealous for his land, and hath spared his people. And the Lord answered, and said to his people: Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations, saith the Lord Almighty.




GOSPEL (Matt. vi. 16 21.) AT THAT TIME, Jesus said to his disciples: When you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee ? Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to your- selves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.

But, in this battling of the spirit against the flesh, we need good armour. Our holy Mother the Church knows how much we need it; and therefore does she summon us to enter into the House of God, that she may arm us for the holy contest. What this armour is we know from St. Paul, who thus describes it: “Have your loins girt about with Truth, and having on the Breast-plate of Justice. And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. In all things, taking the Shield of Faith. Take unto you the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:14-17) The very Prince of the Apostles, too, addresses these solemn words to us: “Christ having suffered in the flesh, be ye also armed with the same thought” (1 Peter 4:1) We are entering, today, upon a long campaign of the warfare spoken of by the Apostles: — forty days of battle, — forty days of penance. We shall not turn cowards, if our souls can but be impressed with the conviction, that the battle and the penance must be gone through. Let us listen to the eloquence of the solemn Rite which opens our Lent. Let us go whither our Mother leads us, — that is, to the scene of The Fall.

The enemies we have to fight with, are of two kinds: — internal, and external: — the first are our Passions; the second are the Devils. Both were brought on us by Pride, and man’s Pride began when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him his sin, but he punished him. The punishment was Death, and this was the form of the Divine Sentence: Thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return. (Genesis 3:19) O that we had remembered this ! The recollection of what we are and what we are to be, would have checked that haughty rebellion, which has so often led us to break the law of God. And if, for the time to come, we would persevere in loyalty to him, — we must humble ourselves, accept the Sentence, and look on this present life as a path to the grave. The path may be long, or short: — but to the Tomb it must lead us. Remembering this, we shall see all things in their true light. We shall love that God, who has deigned to set his heart on us, notwithstanding our being creatures of death: we shall hate, with deepest contrition, the insolence and ingratitude, wherewith we have spent so many of our few days of life, that is, in sinning against our Heavenly Father: and we shall be not only willing, but eager, to go through these days of penance, which he so mercifully gives us for making reparation to his offended Justice.

This was the motive the Church had in enriching her Liturgy with the solemn Rite, at which we are to assist this morning. When, upwards of a thousand years ago, she decreed the anticipation of the Lenten Fast by the last four days of Quinquagesima Week, she instituted this impressive ceremony of signing the forehead of her Children with Ashes, whilst saying to them those awful words, wherewith God sentenced us to death: Remember, Man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return! But the making use of Ashes as a symbol of humiliation and penance, is of a much earlier date than the institution we allude to. We find frequent mention of it in the Old Testament. Job, though a Gentile, sprinkled his flesh with Ashes, that, thus humbled, he might propitiate the divine mercy: (Job 16:16) and this was two thousand years before the coming of our Saviour. The Royal Prophet tells us of himself, that he mingled Ashes with his bread, because of the divine anger and indignation. (Psalm 101:10) Many such examples are to be met with in the Sacred Scriptures; but so obvious is the analogy between the sinner, who thus signifies his grief, and the object, whereby he signifies it, that we read such instances without the attention of surprise. When fallen man would humble himself before the Divine Justice, which has sentenced his body to turn again into Dust, — how could he more aptly express his contrite acceptance of the sentence, than by sprinkling himself, or his food, with Ashes, which is the dust of wood consumed by fire? This earnest acknowledgment of his being himself but Dust and Ashes, is an act of humility, and humility ever gives him confidence in that God, who resists the proud and pardons the humble.

It is probable, that, when this ceremony of the Wednesday in Quinquagesima Week was first instituted, it was not intended for all the Faithful, but only for such as had committed any of those crimes, for which the Church, inflicted a public penance; and these alone received the Ashes. Before the Mass of the day began, they presented themselves at the Church, where the people were all assembled. The Priests received the confession of their sins, and then clothed them in sackcloth, and sprinkled Ashes on their heads. After this ceremony, the Clergy and the Faithful prostrated, and recited aloud the Seven Penitential Psalms. A Procession, in which the Penitents walked bare-footed, then followed; and on its return, the Bishop addressed these words to the Penitents: “Behold, we drive you from the doors of the Church, by reason of your sins and crimes, as Adam, the first man, was driven out of Paradise, because of his transgression.” The Clergy then sang several Responsories, taken from the Book of Genesis, and in which mention was made of the sentence pronounced by God when he condemned man to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, for that the earth was cursed on account of sin. The doors were then shut, and the Penitents were not to pass the threshold until Maundy Thursday, when they were to come and receive Absolution.

Dating from the 11th Century, the discipline of Public Penance began to fall into disuse, and the holy rite of putting Ashes on the heads of all the Faithful indiscriminately, became so general, that, at length, it was considered as forming an essential part of the Roman Liturgy. Formerly, it was the practice to approach bare-footed to receive this solemn Memento of our nothingness; and we find, that even so early as the 12th century, the Pope himself, when passing from the Church of Saint Anastasia to that of Saint Sabina, at which the Station was held, went the whole distance bare-footed, as also did the Cardinals, who accompanied him. The Church no longer requires this exterior penance ; but she is as anxious as ever, that the holy ceremony, at which we are about to assist, should produce in us the sentiments she intended to convey by it, when she first instituted it.

Let us not, then, be sad because we are to fast; let us be sad only because we have sinned and made fasting a necessity.

As we have just mentioned, the Station, in Rome, is at Saint Sabina, on the Aventiue Hill. It is under the patronage of this holy Martyr that she opens the penitential Season of Lent.





EPISTLE

We learn from this magnificent passage of the Prophet Joel how acceptable to God is the expiation of Fasting. When the penitent sinner inflicts corporal penance upon himself, God’s justice is appeased. We have a proof of it in the Ninivites. If the Almighty pardoned an infidel city, as Ninive was, solely because its inhabitants sought for mercy under the garb of penance; what will he not do in favour of his own people, who offer him the twofold sacrifice, exterior works of mortification, and true contrition of heart? Let us, then, courageously enter on the path of penance. We are living in an age, when, through want of faith and of fear of God, those practices which are as ancient as Christianity itself, and on which we might almost say it was founded, are falling into disuse: it behooves us to be on our guard, lest we, too, should imbibe the false principles, which have so fearfully weakened the Christian spirit. Let us never forget our own personal debt to the divine Justice, which will remit neither our sins nor the punishment due to them, except inasmuch as we are ready to make satisfaction. We have just been told, that these bodies, which we are so inclined to pamper, are but dust; and as to our souls, which we are so often tempted to sacrifice by indulging the flesh, they have claims upon the body, claims of both restitution and obedience.



GOSPEL

Our Redeemer would not have us receive the announcement of the great Fast as one of sadness and melancholy. The Christian who understands what a dangerous thing it is to be behindhand with divine Justice, welcomes the Season of Lent with joy ; it consoles him. He knows, that if he be faithful in observing what the Church prescribes, his debt will be less heavy upon him. These penances, these satisfactions, (which the indulgence of the Church has rendered so easy,) being offered to God unitedly with those of our Saviour himself, and being rendered fruitful by that holy fellowship which blends into one common propitiatory sacrifice the good works of all the members of the Church Militant, — will purify our souls, and make them worthy to partake in the grand Easter joy. Let us not, then, be sad because we are to fast; let us be sad only because we have sinned and made fasting a necessity. In this same Gospel, our Redeemer gives us a second counsel, which the Church will often bring before us during the whole course of Lent: it is that of joining Almsdeeds with our Fasting. He bids us to lay up treasures in heaven. For this, we need intercessors; let us seek them amidst the Poor.

=======

This text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)