Vigils Reading – Ash Wednesday

THE GOD OF LENT

by Thomas Merton4

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Lent is not a season of punishment so much as one of healing… a season of

special reflection and prayer, a forty-day retreat in which each Christian, to the

extent he is able, tries to follow Christ into the desert by prayer and fasting…

The cross of ashes, traced upon the forehead of each Christian… is the sign of

Christ’s victory over death. The words “Remember man that thou art dust, and that

to dust thou shalt return” are not to be taken as… a kind of “sacrament of death”…

The declaration that the body must fall temporarily into dust is a challenge to

spiritual combat, that our burial may be “in Christ” and that we may rise with Him

to “live unto God.”…

To say there is joy in Ash Wednesday is not to empty the procession of its

sorrows and anguish. “Save me O God… for the waters are come in even unto my

soul.” This is not a song of joy. If we present our selves before God to receive ashes

from the hand of the priest it is because we are convinced of our sinfulness… A

sinner is a drowning man, a sinking ship. The waters are bursting into him on all

sides… They are closing over his head, and he cries out to God: “the waters are

come in even unto my soul.”… Ash Wednesday is for people who know what it

means for their soul to be logged with these icy waters: all of us are such people, if

only we can realize it… The light of Lent is given us to help us with this realization.

Nevertheless, the liturgy of Lent is not focused on the sinfulness of the

penitent but on the mercy of God… Nowhere will we find more tender expressions

of the divine mercy than on this day… In the Introit for Ash Wednesday we sing:

“You have mercy upon all, O Lord, and hate none of those which You have made.”…

The God of Lent is like a calm sea of mercy. In Him there is no anger. This

“hiding” of God’s severity is not a subterfuge. It is a revelation of His true nature.

He is not severe… He is love. Love becomes severe only to those who make Him

severe for themselves. Love is hard only to those who refuse Him. It is not, and

cannot be Love’s will to be refused. Therefore it is not and cannot be Love’s will to

be severe and punish… Those who refuse Him are severe to themselves, and

immolate themselves to the blood-thirsty god of their own self-love. It is from this

idol that Love would deliver us. To such bitter servitude, Love would never

condemn us.

4 Seasons of Celebration – Farrar, Straus & Giroux – NY – 1965 – pg. 1189