“Dust you are, and to dust you shall return,”

Today, we begin the time of Lent.  One of the wonderful things about the Lenten season is a sense of being in process.  Lent is our springtime of new growth and renewed life.  Lent is the season to realize that God is continually creating; that God’s grace is continually moving through us.

We can think of Lent as both a sojourn and a journey.  The sojourn occurs in the desert as Jesus spends forty days alone in self-reflection and discernment of God’s way.  The journey takes place on the road to Jerusalem as Jesus moves toward his dark destiny.  The sojourn causes us to look inward and acknowledge our human and spiritual vulnerabilities; the journey bids us look outward and weigh the costs of discipleship.  Both involve turning.

In the solitary sojourn, we turn away from our sins and temptations and toward God and his great mercy.  This is otherwise known as repentance.  And while we usually don’t put ourselves in a desolate environment for forty days, we can choose a posture of humility and undertake practices that sharpen our spiritual awareness….

On Ash Wednesday, we Christians are traditionally reminded of our own mortality in a very vivid way, as the ashes are marked on our foreheads in the sign of the cross.  In the sign of the cross we hear the words spoken over us, “Dust thou art and to dust thou wilt return.”  This is a reminder not just of our physical mortality, but of the very path of Lent itself.  We begin this season of Lent not only reminded of our death but marked for death, and that path of death is about our transformation.

Fr Pothin, rector.