Fr. Dale’s Ash Wednesday Homily
Ash Wednesday 2025
March 5, 2025
Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6; 16-18
Everyone has seen it at one time or the other… a thought put on a button, bumper sticker, just about anything… message:
Please be patient. God isn’t finished with me… yet!
Whether we realist it or not, today we proclaim that same message. We don’t do it with a button… but with the ashes on our foreheads.
The askes we will wear announce to the world a plain fact… we are not perfect, we are sinners…
These ashes tell all who see us that we are beginning 40 days of prayer, repentance and sacrifice – that we are Catholic Christians seeking somehow to reconcile ourselves with God.
These ashes say that we are a work in progress.
They say: please be patient. God ISN’T finished with me.
In a word, He isn’t finished with any of us.
That is the great wonder and consolation of Lent!
As we enter this holy season, we should approach it soberly and seriously. But we should not mistaken “seriousness’ for ‘solemnity’.
The Gospel reminds us; “Do not look gloomy… anoint your head and wash your face.” I’d take that one step further; add to this season of penance and prayer a sense of possibility. Make it an occasion of Hope. And yes, even Joy… and most definitely Mercy…
We think of Lent as a time for ‘giving up’… let us shorten our work to ‘giv-ing’… begin by giving JOY.
And if you truly want to give up something, don’t settle for chocolate or pizza or cheesecake or alcohol or tobacco or shopping or the casinos or whatever… you name it…
Go further. Go deeper. Try giving up something REALLY hard… give up cynicism… or jealousy… or backstabbing…
Give up gossip. Give up regrets for choices you never made or paths you never took. Give up the Blame Game. Give up fighting God’s Will for you. Give up acting “MY will be done” rather “THY will be done”.
Need help? Try this: give up whatever fear or anxiety is keeping you from celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation… pull a Nike… Just Do It… go. Look for opportunities… they are there…
Give up being too busy to pray or being too worriedto Hope. As I know is said in AA… let go, let God. As it is also said, ‘there is no better time than the present’. As scriptures says, ‘now is the acceptable time’…
The point of all this isn’t just to take others feel better – or make ourselves feel holy. It is to draw us closer to The One who makes everything, including redemption… possible. And we do it now for a good reason. Lent pushes us to admit something we prefer to ignore. You know, we don’t have forever. Look in the mirror after Mass tonight, we have been marked. The clock is ticking… and there is work to do…
As we ‘Remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return’ OR ‘Reform your life and believe in the Gospels’; we remember to start ‘over and over and over’ in these 40 days to become better… not perfect.
Be patient with yourselves… and with everyone else; especially the unsensible…
God isn’t finished with any of us… yet.