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SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Ash Wednesday
DESCRIPTION:THE GOD OF LENT \nby Thomas Merton4 \n◊◊◊ \nLent is not a season of punishment so much as one of healing… a season of \nspecial reflection and prayer\, a forty-day retreat in which each Christian\, to the \nextent he is able\, tries to follow Christ into the desert by prayer and fasting… \nThe cross of ashes\, traced upon the forehead of each Christian… is the sign of \nChrist’s victory over death. The words “Remember man that thou art dust\, and that \nto dust thou shalt return” are not to be taken as… a kind of “sacrament of death”… \nThe declaration that the body must fall temporarily into dust is a challenge to \nspiritual combat\, that our burial may be “in Christ” and that we may rise with Him \nto “live unto God.”… \nTo say there is joy in Ash Wednesday is not to empty the procession of its \nsorrows and anguish. “Save me O God… for the waters are come in even unto my \nsoul.” This is not a song of joy. If we present our selves before God to receive ashes \nfrom the hand of the priest it is because we are convinced of our sinfulness… A \nsinner is a drowning man\, a sinking ship. The waters are bursting into him on all \nsides… They are closing over his head\, and he cries out to God: “the waters are \ncome in even unto my soul.”… Ash Wednesday is for people who know what it \nmeans for their soul to be logged with these icy waters: all of us are such people\, if \nonly we can realize it… The light of Lent is given us to help us with this realization. \nNevertheless\, the liturgy of Lent is not focused on the sinfulness of the \npenitent but on the mercy of God… Nowhere will we find more tender expressions \nof the divine mercy than on this day… In the Introit for Ash Wednesday we sing: \n“You have mercy upon all\, O Lord\, and hate none of those which You have made.”… \nThe God of Lent is like a calm sea of mercy. In Him there is no anger. This \n“hiding” of God’s severity is not a subterfuge. It is a revelation of His true nature. \nHe is not severe… He is love. Love becomes severe only to those who make Him \nsevere for themselves. Love is hard only to those who refuse Him. It is not\, and \ncannot be Love’s will to be refused. Therefore it is not and cannot be Love’s will to \nbe severe and punish… Those who refuse Him are severe to themselves\, and \nimmolate themselves to the blood-thirsty god of their own self-love. It is from this \nidol that Love would deliver us. To such bitter servitude\, Love would never \ncondemn us. \n  \n4 Seasons of Celebration – Farrar\, Straus & Giroux – NY – 1965 – pg. 1189 \n  \n 
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-ash-wednesday/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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