Abbot Robert's Homily for Ash Wednesday
If a monk’s life is to be a perpetual Lent, then St Benedict puts this before us because in this season we learn once again to choose what is essential, to return to the genuine source of our freedom and therefore we can walk in hope.
I have already reminded the monastic community on another occasion that the spirit of ‘Jubilee’, the desire to return to God’s plan and purpose, is not something that is limited to a calendar year every 25 years. Jubilee is at the heart of God’s good news announced by the prophets and reaching its climax in Jesus himself, who is the living embodiment of jubilee. Jubilee is a lifestyle, a way of living in relationship with God. So, what is true of Jubilee is equally true of Lent.
The imposition of ashes, along with either the words: Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return. Or Repent and believe in the Gospel. Both these phrases take us back to our origins and look forward to our future glory. These ashes and the sign of the cross point to a hope, a promise that is inscribe in our very humanity, a promise and hope that can never deceive or never disappoint. This is why Benedict wants us to live a perpetual Lent, this is why this is a joyful season, because both Lent and Jubilee root us in our relationship with the Trinity from whom we received life, in whom there is hope.
I recall words of St Irenaeus:
In the beginning, God created Adam not because he needed man,
but because he wanted someone on whom to bestow his blessing.
Also, words from St Gregory of Nyssa:
Man as a being is dust…But once he is adopted by the God of the
Universe as a Son, he becomes part of the family of the Being,
whose excellence and greatness no one can see and understand.
Man surpasses his nature he becomes eternal; human he becomes divine.
Our relationship with God and the deep longing written in the human heart to communicate with the divine are essential elements of our human nature. This is what the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council so clearly taught in Gaudium et Spes n19:
The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God…If man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence.
Lent, therefore, points us to what is essential. The jubilee presses the great reset button, as it were, which restores us to our factory settings! What and who we are meant to be get easily cluttered and compromised as we go through life. Our fasting, payer and almsgiving cleanse the lens of our hearts. We realign ourselves with God and encounter once again the hope that, heals our perspective eternally.
Whatever we choose to do this Lenten season, let us make sure that we do not simply repeat mindlessly what we have always done. Let’s not be minimalist. But rather let us choose something that is going to renew and reactivate our trust in God. Enabling us to see more clearly our identity, dignity and our destiny. Let’s choose something that will heal the way we have seen one another, the way we see ourselves and ultimately the way we see God. Let us choose to do something this Jubilee Lent that will reawaken our hope and empower us to be agents of hope.
The little things we offer to the Lord, He can use to do great things with in us and for us.
Change our attitude and we will change the world around us.
We can remain bitter or choose to be better. A lifestyle choice…
Abbot Robert Igo, OSB
Ash Wednesday, 5 March 2025
