I could not help but wonder how many of us in line for ashes today were aware that Lent goes beyond a personal agenda of reconciliation. Did we know, as we moved forward to receive the ashes, that we were participating in the Great Reconciliation to arrive with the Eschaton?
My Lenten program of recovery is a part of my responsibility for the ultimate recovery of all humanity at the Second Coming of Christ. Today again, as I welcomed again the imposition of ashes on my head, I was pledging to reform sinful behavior that I was once saved from by my Baptism. By my Baptismal vows I once swore to align myself completely with the Gospel that is saving the world. I have been unfaithful to that solemn pledge, deliberately allowing myself to step out of or, at least, step aside from the transformational power of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus in our world. I lost heart for the event of the Eschaton. I diminished its witness, and in some way, its saving effect on others in the Church and world. I stopped being part of the grand solution.
In effect, Lent is a journey of return to being the New Humanity in Christ. It involves all of us who have chosen against it by our sin. Today I join with fellow penitents to correct the course of our lives toward the Eschaton, allowing baptismal grace to renew us after an unfaithful fall, reconcile us to God and one another and redirect our steps in the pilgrimage.
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