Ash Wednesday won't be the same this year
I am reminded today of a mass I didn't finish in Cullcuire in the Peruvian Andes. We had just started the mass in a hall when a violent rainstorm began, making such a noise on the tin roof that no-one could be heard. Then the power went off so we couldn't see each other. We gave each other a sign of peace by the light of a candle and went home in the dark and rain.
Today, on Ash Wednesday, in many parts of the world, we won't even begin mass because of the Covid restrictions. Ash Wednesday without Ashes. But we can still reflect on the meaning of Lent. The first liturgical prayer for the distribution of the ashes is 'Repent, and believe in the gospel.'' We usually think of repentance as being sorry for something we have done wrong in the past, but the Greek word usually translated as repent is much stronger. It means a total change of our way of thinking. To see the crucified and Risen Lord present as a new reality in our world and to see everything through his eyes.
As a poet put so well 'They said ''You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are.'' The man replied: ''Things as they are, are changed upon the blue guitar.'' May we find our blue guitar during Lent by believing in the gospel and allowing our imperfect lives to be transformed by the words and actions of the Son of God who emptied himself to accompany us in our joys and sorrows .
Columban Fr Donald Hornsey lives at St Columban's, Lower Hutt, New Zealand.
