Ash Wednesday

One of my favorite characters of American literature is Scarlett O’Hara of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Do you remember her response to any problem or difficulty that came her way?  It was always “I’ll think about that tomorrow.  I’ll worry about that tomorrow.  Tomorrow is another day.”

We are all like Scarlett O’Hara when it comes to our spiritual life, aren’t we?  Don’t we all say:  Do I need to pray more?  Yes, but I’ll think about that tomorrow.  Do I need to get closer to God?  Sure, but there’s plenty of time to worry about that later.  Do I need to turn away from sin and follow the Gospel more faithfully?  Absolutely – and maybe I’ll start sometime soon.

Today is the beginning of the magnificent season of Lent, and we are all called to prayer, self sacrifice, and works of charity as we meditate on and look forward to celebrating the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord.  In today’s Mass, we hear Saint Paul proclaim in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Let us all make today the day we begin to convert our lives and follow the Gospel more closely.  As our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI said during his audience today,

Conversion means changing the direction of the path of
our lives….It is going against the current when the “current” is a
superficial, incoherent, and illusory way of life that often drag us down,
making us slaves of evil or prisoners of moral mediocrity. Nevertheless,
through conversion we tend to the highest measure of Christian life, we
trust in the living and personal Gospel who is Jesus Christ. He is the final
goal and the profound path of conversion, the path that we are all called to
travel in our lives, allowing ourselves to be illuminated with his light and
sustained by his strength, which moves our steps.

A happy and blessed Lent to you all.