#REMEMBER FROM DUST YOU CAME SERIES#

вЂњI disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes,вЂќ (Job 42:6). ItвЂ™s how Job described his repentance after questioning GodвЂ™s justice. It was postponed, this gave Adam and Eve and their descendants time to repent.ДЄshes then came to also symbolize repentance. Second, this meant that there was also a limit to his suffering. First, in limiting the term of life on earth, the extent of mankindвЂ™s sin was correspondingly curtailed. In the sentence of death, early Church commentators saw three aspects of GodвЂ™s mercy at work. The ashes, then, also remind us that we are sinners facing the punishment of eventual death.Д«ut even in this message there is an undertone of hope. They were then punished by means of their own sin-condemned to rest in the dust, that is to die and be buried in the ground. Rather than rising to their divine calling, the first man and woman sank back into the dust. Rather than pursue what is eternal and invisible, Adam and Even became captivated by the temporal and visible. Of course, in the Fall, all this went horribly awry. There is a noble humility to the original human condition. The ashes then, remind us that we are compound creatures: called up from the very dust to set our sights on the heavens. This means that everything we have derives from Him. Genesis 1:26-27 informs us that we are made in the image of God. So, before we take the Fall into account, the ashes on our forehead remind us something about the human condition. Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. These words also allude back to the creation of man in Genesis 2:7, They are the contained in the curse of Genesis 3:19 that is visited upon Adam after the eating of the forbidden fruit. The words accompanying the rite of ashes should ring familiar to Catholics who know their Bibles. Because nothing gets your attention like someone drawing ashes on your forehead-as a symbol of your death, no less-in the shape of an instrument of lethal torture. Apparently, getting told that you will one day rot in the ground is not something one gets used to.ДЄnd that seems by design: Lent stops us dead in our tracks in a way that other liturgical seasons do not. But I know lifelong Catholics who are also unsettled by these words.

In the Episcopal tradition we see this reality of GodвЂ™s love from the very outset of our prayers on Ash Wednesday which begin вЂњAlmighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made.вЂќ It turns out that the first words we hear in this yearly tolling of mortalityвЂ™s bell are not the solemn command to вЂњremember that you are dustвЂќ but rather a reminder that God loves each of us, dirt and all.I was still relatively new to the Church at the time, so I could have only heard these words a few times before.

The cross that we receive on Ash Wednesday is an invitation to a better life: a life with less physical, mental, and spiritual clutter and more room for GodвЂ™s love and all that this divine love brings. While we will all someday die, there is another, deeper message of Ash Wednesday and Lent that is about more than death and mortality. Twenty-some years later I still treasure those words from Ash Wednesday, but there are other Ash Wednesday words that I have also come to appreciate. Deeper than any philosophy and far more intellectually sobering than any so-called вЂњdeep question,вЂќ Ash Wednesday reminded me that human life is bound up with mortality. I was blown away by the solemn certainty of death. I had seen people wandering around with a smudged cross of ash on their forehead, but among the many important questions that I had not asked was what all these ashy foreheads meant.ДЄt that service, the priest inscribed a cross on my forehead with the words вЂњRemember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.вЂќ Then, a friend invited me to an Ash Wednesday service. I thought that I had discovered lifeвЂ™s most important questions. has written a few thoughts for today, Ash Wednesday.ДЄbout half way through college, I started reading a lot of philosophy which lead to many questions: What is the meaning of life? Why do I exist? What would my parents think if I changed religions? Looking back, I can see that my existential ambitions were pretty typical for a 20-year-old student.

#REMEMBER FROM DUST YOU CAME SERIES#

This Lent, weвЂ™ll share a series of weekly reflectionsВ provided by members of The Saint Francis FoundationвЂ™s Church Relations team. вЂRemember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.вЂ™ February 2018

Remember from dust you came