“CHRIST: YOUR TREASURE, YOUR HEART”
Saint Matthew 6: 16-21
ASH WEDNESDAY: 1 March Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
Fasting is good and should be done not just because your Small Catechism says: “Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed a fine outward training…” but more so because God says “Moreover when ye fast…”
Wearing ashes once a year on the Mass for a day that is, after all, denominated as “Ash” Wednesday is good, not because it makes you more disciplined, pious, or liturgical than someone else, but because it never hurts to put “death before your eyes.” As Adam’s heir you are but dust and to dust you shall return. The day is both short and evil; repent and believe. Today is the day of salvation. Tonight, is the Feast of The Lord for His true treasure and His beloved Bride.
And also, please pray before every meal, just a short table prayer will do, even when you are out in public. Acknowledging your Lord and God as the creator and giver of all First Article gifts—FOOD…is not being a hypocrite so long as your heart is right. Your heart is always right when it is directed by The Holy Ghost outwards to Christ rather than inwards to self.
Whether one disfigures their face in a vain and egotistical effort to “look good” to the world and their own “old Adam,” or, whether one disfigures their face by stuffing it full of sinful “food” like the rich man who despised Lazarus, that person is neither loving The Lord nor loving his neighbor. That selfish “son of the liar” is also, most importantly, rejecting the good gifts of Jesus—turning his back and running away from His identity as a child of Israel.
Look not at yourself. Look not at your neighbor with contempt, hatred, lust, or envy. Look at your neighbor through the lens of the Cross of Christ and you will behold in love and act in love.
The things of the flesh—mammon, stuff, food, clothes, shelter, and the rest—are good and needful. They are provided and always will be gifted you by God. But they are tools and implements. They assist you to be about your Father’s business. Use them for His Kingdom which is now your Kingdom as well, for His Son, is your Lord and God. His other children are now your brothers and sisters. Earthly treasures will rot away; moth and rust doth corrupt unto death and dust. Even your bodies and the bodies of your most dear loved ones too will decompose to ash and dust. But your eyes and heart, that is, your ears of faith, focus on He Who is Life eternal. Christ is your treasure and that means the REAL Jesus of Word and Sacrament and not of imagination and “on again/off again” memory when you’re not doing something that your sinful nature thinks is more important. In this House of The Living God is your Treasure. In this New Testament Tabernacle of The God/Man is His Body and Blood and His absolving Word of Peace. Your heart is here because Jesus’ Heart and Its Blood of Forgiveness is here!
Ash Wednesday begins Lent. Life is Lent. Every day is a day of repentance and every Sunday is a little, “mini-Easter” even as every Mass is a “foretaste of the Feast to come.” Traditionally Lent is a time for more deliberative and intensive sacrifice and penance. But whose sacrifice and penance, or better translated, repentance is what matters. Of course, you are to be about fasting and praying, and alms giving—the three marks of Lententide. You should now in the next 6 weeks do exactly what you should be doing in the other 46 weeks: praying for your neighbor’s conversion and for the steadfastness of the entire Church—that The Lord’s will be done. Of course, you should be fasting and abstaining from needless, conspicuous, and superfluous money wasting and hoarding. The mission of God needs your resources, your money, and your time more than the merchants of entertainment and gluttony. But this evening as you wear the sign of the cross both upon your hearts, and for this night, on your brows as well, you joyously remember that it was Christ Himself Who did the penance and made the sacrifice. He is both Scapegoat and Lamb of God.
“Old Adam” is like the rich man of the parable, unclean with greasy meats and expensive wines staining his face. Jesus is the true Lazarus Who has His ashen face stained with dirt, sweat, grime, wounds, and Sacred Blood. The unbeliever is garbed with the worlds raiment: gaudy, bright, glittering…and rotting away by the second. Jesus is the Living Lazarus clothed in rags, and patches, and string which hearken and point to both His swaddling cloths and His burial shroud, but in reality are the Righteous Robes of your everlasting Royalty—your wedding garments.
The true Job of Ash Wednesday is The Savior, not on the ash heap suffering without understanding, but The Precious Redeemer on the bone and skull littered mound, the Ash, heap of Calvary suffering and dying with perfect understanding, acceptance, and Love for you.
Your Treasure Here. Your heart Here.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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