Homily
[Joel 2: 12-18; Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18]
With this mass of Ash Wednesday, we enter the holy season of Lent. To lead us into its deepest meaning, allow me to share with you a chance meeting I had on Sunday with a little three-year-old girl.
It occurred downstairs in the lower level of this Basilica following mass. She was playing with other children, climbing on and over things, and, when I passed by, she was standing on a ledge about two-feet in height. Her father was right next to her. Obviously, two feet is a major drop in the perspective of a three-year-old, yet she wanted to show me how she could leap off of it. What she meant, of course, is how she could jump into the arms of her father, whom she knew was sure to catch her, which he did. She had total faith in Daddy’s nearness and protection. Had her father been absent, we can be sure she would not have climbed onto that ledge in the first place. She was ready to take a leap, but only if her father was right there with her.
Lent is the blessed season in which we are called to look honestly and truthfully at the many “leaps” we have taken without acknowledging our reliance upon God our Father, and His love. The essence of sin is a turning away from God and toward ourselves, a choice to place confidence not in the love of the Father but in my own abilities. Whenever we do that, we “land” badly, usually at great harm to ourselves and others. As Christians, we are, certainly, called to “leap”. By this I mean the leap of faith, jumping into the arms of God with the entirety of our lives. Lent provides us with the wonderful opportunity to admit our forgetfulness of God, our self-reliance, to repent of our foolishness, and to turn back to the Father, seeking once again his presence, and placing our full confidence in His nearness, ready to catch and carry us.
Let’s keep in mind that we enter Lent this year in the context of the Jubilee of Hope called for by Pope Francis. He knows, as do we all, that the whole world is in search of hope right now. Anxiety abounds. This is because of the many “leaps” being taken without reference to the love and commandments of God, by not only individuals but also families, nations and entire continents. We are leaping without being at all sure where we will land, or even if there will be a landing. Small wonder people everywhere are anxious, fearful, and angry. Both individually and communally, in families and among nations, it is time to admit our folly, turn back to God, and ask Him by His mercy to catch us, prevent us from the damage we are sure to do to ourselves, and set us on a secure footing.
That secure footing is faith in the love of the Father. Notice how Jesus, in the Gospel, refers to the Father again and again. As we fast, pray, and give alms, he says, our Father, who sees in secret, will reward us. Our Lenten practices have as their aim the healing of self-reference and the return to the embrace of the Father. Fasting and almsgiving take us out of ourselves to focus instead on God and the needs of others. These are supported by prayer, in which we open our eyes to the reality of limit and need, and our hearts to the truth of God’s never-failing love and mercy. And what is truly beautiful is this: the more we examine our lives in prayer, with the guidance we receive from God’s Word and Holy Spirit, the more we realize that, even when we did forget God and had taken foolish and dangerous leaps, our Heavenly Father had never forgotten us and was always close, catching us in ways that sometimes only hindsight can reveal. God is love; God is faithful; God is always near. We need, the whole world needs, to decide no longer to rely upon ourselves but instead on the love of the Father, and learn once again to live by the leap of faith.
In a moment we shall have ashes placed upon our foreheads. Let this be for us the sign of our readiness to reform our lives by fasting from self-reliance and leaping with full confidence into the wisdom, providence, and mercy of our Heavenly Father.
✠ Most Reverend Richard W. Smith
St. Joseph Basilica
March 5th, 2025